


Bonds Unbroken

by Winterstar



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Angst, Canonical Character Death, Destiny, Developing Relationship, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Romance, Soul Bond, Underage Drinking, soul mates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-09
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2017-12-18 04:52:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 53,646
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winterstar/pseuds/Winterstar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve and Tony grow up knowing one another and they discover they are meant for greater things and each other. There’s only one problem, everything and everyone keeps tearing them apart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is an experiment. I started to write it a week ago and just left it untouched since then. I decided to give it a try and see if anyone was interested in it. If there is interest I will continue. 
> 
> As a note, this starts out with Steve and Tony in modern day as teenagers. I did not mark it as underage because they will not have a sexual relationship until they are both of age, so no reason to warn there.

Steve is just fifteen when he overhears Howard Stark complaining about his son. He’s in the kitchen with his mother and doesn’t mean to eavesdrop because everyone knows it’s wrong and rude and he would never do anything like that. But he has his textbooks open and he’s reading his history book when he jumps nearly out of his seat when Howard screams at Maria that something has to be done.

“There’s nothing to be done. It’s a fad, he’ll grow out of it,” Maria assures Howard. They’re voices carry from the den into the large working kitchen. 

Sarah Rogers looks at her son and purses her lips to silently reprimand him. He nods and runs a hand through his hair. He shouldn’t listen, but he knows Mister Stark can be cruel, especially to his son. 

“It isn’t something he can grow out of, have you seen it? Do you even have any clue to what it is?” Mister Stark howls. He must be in the liquor again. 

Steve bites on his pencil and looks over to his mother who is dutifully cleaning off the stovetop. She used to be a nurse, but things got too rough with the scheduling and his constant illnesses. She kept on having to reschedule and it became impossible to continue to do twelve hour shifts when Steve had asthma that wouldn’t quit and a bad heart. He still feels guilty that she’s stuck as a maid but grateful that she ended up with a job at the Stark’s residence in Manhattan. Otherwise, he’d never met Tony. 

Opening his palm, he gazes at the glimmering blue triangle. It is light, barely there at all, but it reminds him constantly that he’s linked, to be bonded with Tony Stark. He smiles and closes his hand only to hear Howard yell at his wife again.

“I want them out of the house, I don’t want that sniveling weakling around Anthony again,” Mister Stark demands.

“Sarah is the best cook and maid we’ve had in years. She runs the staff with great efficiency, Howard. I won’t lose her,” Maria says and Steve’s happy she stood her ground.

“Then tell her to stop bringing that waif around. The kid looks like he’s on death’s door half the time.”

“Tony feels sorry for him, Howard. He’s like a puppy to him,” Maria replies. “Seriously, you have nothing to worry about. Once Tony goes off to graduate school, the link will break. Soul bonds do break if not consummated.”

“How the hell do we know that little cretin doesn’t take it up the ass?” Howard says.

“Don’t be crass,” Maria answers and with that she enters the kitchen. When she sees him staring at her wide eyed and terrified, she doesn’t even blink. “Hello Sarah, Steven.”

“Hello, Mrs Stark,” Steve murmurs and keeps his eyes down on his textbook when Howard enters the room. 

The man hangs over him as if he’s studying the books Steve has opened on the table. He flips through one of Steve’s sketchbooks, takes the cigarette out of his mouth, and mashes it onto one of the drawings Steve did of Tony, ruining the line of his face. When Steve jumps up to say something his mother’s quick words stop him.

“Mister Stark, this will be my son’s last day here. Steven has an after school job he’ll be working, don’t you honey?”

The rage burning in his chest sears through him as he looks at the charred hole in the paper. It feels like its scorched right through his own heart. His hands tremble and he looks away from the paper to meet his mother’s gaze. She’s warning him, telling him silently how she needs this job. How everything will be okay, if he just follows along.

He nods and says, “Yeah, Mister Stark, I got a paper route and some tutoring.” He wings it, and hope it flies.

Howard glares at him, but his cynical look relaxes a degree and he raises an eyebrow at Steve. “That’s good. You know you should go out and help your mother more. You need to take on more since your father died. Show who’s the man of the house.” He slaps Steve on the back and that just causes Steve to stagger forward. The table stops him from tumbling to the floor. 

Howard grumbles at him once, but leaves it be. “Good luck with the job, son. I’m sure Tony will miss you.”

“I’ll still-.”

“I’m sure Steve will miss Tony as well,” Sarah interrupts and smiles at her employer. “Come on, now, Steve, clean up. We’re going to miss the bus.”

Steve closes all of his books, swipes away at the burn mark on his sketchbook, and stuffs everything in his bag. His mother calls after him when he lingers in the doorway after she’s made her report to Maria regarding the staff and schedules. He jogs up to her, his cheeks flush with the effort. They walk down the pavement to Fifth Avenue.

She threads a hand through his hair and says, “Don’t, Steven, don’t.”

“But Mom, you know that,” he says and peers over his shoulder. The hot pulse of the triangle in his hand isn’t lying. It means something. Few people are scarred with it in their lives. It means he has a soul mate, it means he’ll be something special one of these days; it means he has a destiny.

She wraps an arm around him and hugs him close in the cold of the winter months. “Oh, Steve, you are hopeless in your optimism.” She kisses his temple and leads him to the bus. He only looks back at the house once in hope that Tony would have arrived home, to see him one more time. 

He doesn’t.

Later that night, Steve sits in his room in their rented flat in Brooklyn. He has a sketchbook open and his eyes closed. He doesn’t need to see anything, he doesn’t need to examine the paper or the charcoal in his hand. He only needs to reach out and touch the soul of the one he’s drawing. It is perfect, it is right, it is good.

“Tony,” he whispers and the pulsed beat in his palm answers him. He opens his eyes and stares at the portrait of his soul mate. He remembers when they discovered it, when Tony and Steve had been sitting discussing the merits of what it means to be a hero and to be destined to be one.

They’d be arguing, as usual.

“Being a hero isn’t something you sign up for, it’s something that picks you,” Tony said.

“I think you have to be the right person, I think you have to make that decision between right and wrong,” Steve had said. “I want to sign up and fight for my country because it’s the right things to do. It doesn’t have anything to do with whether or not my palm lights up.”

“Sure, there are lots of freaks in the army who don’t have the mark, but then again having the mark might just mean you’re designed to be someone’s sure thing,” Tony said with a shrug.

“That is crude, Tony,” Steve said and stood up. He hated to think of the mark as just a biological imperative. Even if scientists explained it like that. He wanted to think of it as something special and wonderful, something that made life worth it.

“Yep, a sure thing, a good roll in the hay, a fine fuck,” Tony teased.

“Stop it,” Steve said and walked away from Tony but he continued to taunt him. “Stop, just sto-.”

That was when the asthma attack hit him full force in the chest like a monster’s claw ripped away at his ribcage and squeezed his lungs until he dropped. Only Tony’s hands around him, holding him up kept him from plummeting to the ground, saved him from smacking his head on the concrete. Tony dug into his pocket and retrieved the inhaler, shook it, shoved it in his mouth, counted, and told him to fucking breathe. He did.

When he inhaled the second puff and started to cough, Tony refused to let him go. They held onto one another for what seemed like hours but were only minutes. 

“Hey, hey, kid, it’s all right, it’s good,” Tony said and rubbed a circle on the center of his back. Tony always called him a kid even though Tony was only two years older than him. A small part of him hated it, a larger part of him cherished it.

Steve had smiled and then they realized they had clasped hands. They pulled away from one another only to reveal a blue triangular shape on Steve’s hand, and a vibrant white star on Tony’s palm. When they touched, it pulsated with blues and reds.

Bonded.

Now, he glances down at his triangle and smiles. “Bonded, forever.”

The light pulses once as if in answer.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the encouragement to continue this story. As you will notice this soul bonds story is a bit different from other stories in this trope. Does it work, does it not? You tell me.

Honestly, there is no fucking parking in Brooklyn on fucking Christmas Eve. Tony circles the block another time, scanning the street for even the smallest place. He’s been round the block four times already and has widened his perimeter each time. At this rate, he’ll be all the way back in Manhattan soon. A small compact car pulls out of a tight spot and Tony zooms his Audi A4 V6 into the space without much trouble. He has a 5 speed manual and shimmies it into the tiny space with a little room to spare.

When he jumps out of the car and slams the door, the feeling haunting him all day hits his ribs and chest like a vice grip. He leans over the car’s hood and waits a minute to catch his breath. The cold air hurts and tears actually come to his eyes. He fists his hand on the hood as the ache clenches his ribs and he can’t pull in a breath. A few minutes must pass because the hold on his lungs lets up and releases him. He’s able to stand up straight again and he rounds the car to step up onto the curb. He’s about two blocks away from his destination, and a light flurry of snow sprinkles about the streets. Many of the houses and brownstones have Christmas lights twinkling in the windows and he can hear carolers as he slushes through the snow. His brand new Italian leather shoes will be ruined, he’s certain of it. Howard will shit a brick when he sees them. 

He has no idea how Steve hid his condition from Tony for so long, how he never felt it through their link. Yet, now that he is aware it is an ever present need, an urge and want so desperate it nearly causes him to weep. 

He huddles into his wool jacket as he walks through the evening shower of snow. Soul mates or the possibility of being a souler has always been a reason for being ostracized. Even now, Tony knows his father would like to slash off his hand, maim his own son, in order to deny the existence of Tony’s mark. Even now, his father hopes the bond will break and the mark will disappear as it often does when soul mates decide to part without consummating their bond and their destiny. Tony will never do that; he will never part from Steve. He doesn’t care what rules and restrictions his father forces on him. The thought of a soul mate and a special destiny because of that person both thrills and terrifies him a little.

In the earliest days of their relationship before they were soul mates when Steve as a scrawny ass eleven year old showed up with his mother at their front door, Tony enjoyed the spark of defiance in the kid. Shit, Steve had a bloody nose from getting beaten by a bully in an alleyway before his mother towed him away and brought him along on her interview for the position as cook and maid at the mansion in Manhattan. He can still remember standing there in the vestibule of the mansion, arms crossed, sizing up the rail thin kid from Brooklyn. 

“So, why’d you get in a fight?” he’d asked.

“None of your business,” Steve responded and wiped his nose on his sleeve.

“Someone call you a souler?” Tony had chuckled. The general populace didn’t like soul mates, didn’t understand the special, almost magical bond that could generate something as important as a love between two people that could change the world. 

Steve turned away then and murmured something.

“You have something to say, kid, you say it to me,” Tony said.

“Why?” There had been fire in Steve’s eyes, a challenge.

“Cause if I say so, my father won’t hire your mother,” Tony replied. A blatant lie but it had worked.

“I said to go fuck yourself,” Steve said.

“Oh, that’s rich, the little soldier boy from Brooklyn’s got a mouth on him,” Tony said and clapped. He’d noticed the small embroidery on Steve’s collar indicating he was the son of a fallen soldier of the war. 

Steve launched himself across the space and set upon trying to choke Tony to death. He’d nearly succeeded to, but Howard and Steve’s mom appeared and broke up the fight. Steve immediately apologized and Tony said he hated Steve.

Howard hired Sarah on the spot. The only smart thing the man ever did for Tony. 

Tony hears the bells of a distant church calling for Christmas Eve mass. He wonders if it is Steve’s church, and turns the corner to Steve’s street. Tony shrugs and forges onward to the row houses of apartments. He climbs up the concrete stoop and rings the bell. 

“Hey?”

“I’m here, let me up,” Tony says and the buzzer sounds to signal his admittance. The wind picks up just as he enters and catches the door. He has to force it closed with his shoulder. He mounts the stairs two at a time and races to the door; it is ajar. He enters without knocking and calls, “Steve?”

“He’s in the bedroom,” Bucky says as he walks out of the small kitchen to greet Tony. “Where the hell have you been? He needs you here.” He has a pot of tea in his hands and an empty mug.

“You know it isn’t easy to just fucking drop everything and sneak out of a charity event my mother is holding for orphans on Christmas Eve.” Tony says. There’s a small part of him, no a very large part of him, that kind of hates Bucky. Bucky gets more time with Steve, especially now that Howard effectively kicked Steve out of the house.

“A party, you were at a fucking party?” Bucky sneers at him and scrubs a hand through his messy tangles of hair. Sometimes, Tony just wants to set Bucky’s hair on fire and shove him out a window. Arrogant bastard.

“I have obligations, now, where’s Steve?” He tugs off his coat and throws it onto the single couch in the living room.

“I thought you weren’t allowed to see him anymore because of your little affliction,” Bucky says and motions to Tony’s hand. 

While Bucky isn’t one of those prejudice idiots on the conservative news stations about soulers, Tony does think he might be a little jealous that the insanely rare event of the bonding of two souls happened between his best friend and Tony. Tony rolls his eyes and asks, “Where’s Mrs. Rogers?”

“She’s out. I don’t know. I thought she was at your house working tonight,” Bucky replies.

“Yeah, right, probably she is.” Tony rubs his forehead. That makes perfect sense, Sarah Rogers out breaking her back to help make his family’s Christmas bash a success while her son is sitting home on Christmas Eve, sick. “Son of a -.”

“You got that right,” Bucky mutters as Tony brushes by him to go into the single bedroom of the small flat. Steve must really be sick to be in the bedroom because he usually sleeps on the couch while his mother takes the only bed in the apartment. 

Tony grimaces as he enters and smells the disinfectant, the distinct stench of illness wafting in the room. His expression stills, then falls when he glimpses Steve propped up on pillows with probably every single blanket in the house layered on top of him. He is a frail mass of bones in translucent skin. It knifes his heart, and the ache around his lungs increases.

“Christ, Steve,” Tony says and crosses the room. He reaches out a hand and touches Steve’s forehead, noting the pasty white color of his cheeks, the sheen of sweat across his brow, and the too thin chest struggling to breathe. 

“Watch your mouth, Tony. Not in my mother’s bedroom,” Steve chokes out. With a helpless hand gesture, he points to the crucifix above the bed. “Be respectful.”

“You’re awake,” Tony says and feels the raging heat coming off of Steve.

“He’s been like that for about twenty four hours,” Bucky says as he leans against the door frame. Tony has no idea where the pot of tea disappeared to. “I wouldn’t have called you, he didn’t want me to call you, but I didn’t know what to do when his fever topped one o four.”

“Steve, you need to go to the hospital,” Tony says and perches on the edge of the bed. His heart throbs and he realizes the tightness in his own chest is only a reflection of what is happening with his soul mate. 

“No,” Steve says and shakes his head. “Mom just finished paying off the last doctor bills.” He coughs and it is a wretched sound mixed with phlegm and pain and the fight to breathe. He holds up his hand as if to ward off their concern. Bucky enters the room. 

Steve points. “We –ha-ve meds-- in -- cabinet -- bathroom.” Each word is only a puff of air and a battle to pronounce. 

Tony peers over his shoulder and Bucky nods. He disappears to retrieve the medicine. Tony reaches out his hand and cups Steve’s cheek. “Steve, you should have called me.”

Steve leans into his rough hand and cradles Tony’s hand against his face with his own long slender fingers. “I didn’t want to ruin your holiday.”

“So ruining Barnes’ holiday is okay?” Tony scoffs.

“I’m not a souler like you two,” Bucky says as he joins them in the bedroom. He hands the bottle to Tony. It is a prescription bottle of antibiotics. 

Tony studies it and reads that the prescription is out-dated and that it instructs one pill every twelve hours. The pills have been split in half. “You’re taking expired medicine and you’re not even taking the correct dosage.”

A coughing fit overcomes him and he can’t do anything to respond except curl in on himself. Tony can’t help but wince at how the bones stick out of Steve’s back, how fragile and weak he looks. Steve would hate Tony’s thoughts. Tony leans over and strokes Steve’s back. 

Steve clears his throat as much as he can and wearily drops back on to the cushions. His eyes look bleary and his face flush with fever now. “Just give me a pill.”

“No, we are going to the hospital, now.” Tony stands up and glances at Bucky. “You obviously called me to get him to go to the doctor. Well, I’m here, now help me.”

Bucky moves forward but Steve chokes out a no. The word is filled with air and no actual sound. His ventilation wheezes and he arches forward to try and fill his lungs.

“Shit,” Tony says and sits back on the bed. “Where’s his inhaler?” He searches around the nightstand but doesn’t locate it. 

“Somewhere on the bed,” Bucky replies and is right there with Tony pulling back the covers, tossing the blankets as Steve throws his head back and gulps for air which cannot get into his oxygen starved lungs. 

When Tony flings up the comforter the inhaler flies off the bed and hits the wall. Bucky rushes over and picks it up. 

“Great, you idiot, you broken the damn thing.”

“Give it to me,” Tony says and grabs for it. Steve is barely getting any air into his already congested lungs. Tony examines the device and sees there must be a problem with the spring portion of the nebulizer, it won’t catch. It will take too long to fix. He drops it and places his hands on each side of Steve’s face. “Listen to me, Steve, do you have another rescue inhaler, do you? Tell me you do.” 

He’s frantic as he sees the pain in his soul’s eyes, and he realizes that right there, right now. That Steve is the embodiment of his soul, and he is the same for Steve. He doesn’t know why or how. It is a rare gift, few are classified as soul mates, even fewer completely bond and stay that way forever. Tony knows deep down that he will never be without Steve. Steve’s eyes are glossy and his lips are bluing. 

“Come on, man,” Bucky yells. “Do something.”

Tony’s never tried it, he doesn’t even know if it is just an old fable about soul mates. But he grabs for Steve’s hand, the one with the blue triangle on the palm, the one with his emblem on it. He opens up Steve’s hand and steadies himself. 

This better work. 

He brings their hands together, to touch. The glow of his star and the triangle on Steve’s hand intermingle for a moment, and then he clasps their hands together, lacing his fingers through Steve’s. The red and blue highlight and then merge to form a soft violet color over their hands, glowing and he relaxes into it.

“Relax, Steve, let it take you,” Tony says. 

The fused colors spread and inch up their arms. The mixing against their palms is both hot and cold and he suddenly knows he cannot tell the physical difference between his hand and Steve’s. He briefly wonders how this would be if they made love, how it would feel, the perception of it, because the combination of flesh and light and energy flows through him in a startling fusion of heat and acceptance and wholeness. He knows for the first time ever, he is only half of a whole. He’s been bereft as a sliced thing, lost without his soul. He hitches a breath as the light spreads and reaches his chest where it stops. He doesn’t understand how it knows to stop, how it knows that Steve needs assistance in breathing, it just does. Tony fills his lungs and then watches as Steve is able to do the same. He releases the air and Steve follows suit. He inhales and exhales with slow deliberation and Steve follows only a few seconds later as their souls, together, communicate to Steve’s body what it needs to do. 

Tony cannot be sure what's happening, but he wills it to continue, to allow Steve to take an unencumbered breath. The bands of pain Tony felt before intensify and tighten around his chest as he holds onto Steve's hand, as they share Tony’s energy, his strength, his health. Steve looks up as he rests his head on the cushion of the pillows, his eyes hollowed out and bruised from too long combating one illness after another, one long war he can never win. Tony clasps his hand and vows never to let go, he won't let go. 

If he could seal the deal today, he would, but Steve is too young to consent. Tony is smart enough to comprehend what it would mean - changing their lives forever, linking them together with an unseen tethered bond. Now, it is a tenuous thing, a thing that is barely felt except for when they touch. When they are parted, Tony feels its vibration, the quiet thrumming of the bond, but it is not this live, vital, pulsating link between them - a vessel - which beats and breathes as any part of their separate bodies would, but together combines to form one living thing so much greater than its parts. When they touch it bursts alive and he craves it all the more. From his research, he knows that the bond, once consummated will be this live thing, this part of him so vital and alive it could literally destroy him if Steve is ever harmed. He cannot ask Steve for more, not so young, not so ill.

He holds his other hand to Steve's face and sees the vibrancy of the bond shining there, knows it will fade when they part again. He cannot lose this, he can never lose Steve. Yet, Steve is so sick, so very ill. He damns the bond in some ways. How can it place such a burden on such small, frail shoulders? 

"Tony," Steve whispers into his palm.

"Bucky, get my keys out of my pocket. We're bringing him to the hospital."

“Tony, no,” Steve protests. 

Tony leans forward, allowing only for a chaste kiss, and says, “Do this for me, love, please?”

Before he parts, before his hand falls limp in Tony’s grasp, Steve nods and his eyes close.

“Steve? Steve?” Tony grabs at his shoulders. “Bucky?” Tony looks behind him as Bucky races to join him. “Damn it, Bucky, help me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was your feedback that brought this second chapter - so I thank you all! I hope you continue to enjoy the story.
> 
> Updates on this and other stories can be found on [ tumblr](http://winterstar95.tumblr.com)
> 
> I have three other active stories right now, so updates will come, just slower. Hopefully at least once a week maybe more.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony learns a little more about soul mates and what it means.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter has references to sick and terminally ill children, but nothing descriptive. This chapter also includes the misunderstanding by one character that the other character is referring to underage sex. Additionally, this chapter does reference canon 616 spousal and child abuse (in the past).

The blur of the hospital, the smell and the sounds sets Tony into a frenzy. He’s frantic and jumpy, but tries not to show it. He personifies cool and collected, but Bucky’s continual pacing in the waiting room drives him into a nervous but quiet rage. He needs to know what the hell is happening with Steve. 

“Did you call Mrs. Rogers?” Tony asks, he figures if Bucky has something to do perhaps he’ll settle down and they could both relax and relent to the overwhelming stress as the doctors examine Steve and put him through a battery of tests. Bucky stops and glares at him as if he’s just asked about killing Steve’s dog or something just as hideous. “Mrs. Rogers, did you call her?”

“I figured you would. He’s your soul mate,” Bucky says and pulls out a pack of cigarettes. 

Tony leaps up and pulls the cigarette Bucky flipped into his mouth and crushes it in his fist. “What the fuck is wrong with you? No smoking in the hospital. Go outside, you asswipe.”

Bucky shoves him and Tony kicks out trying to gain purchase, but Bucky has him by the front of his shirt. He propels him hard against the wall and, as he wrenches back his arm to punch Tony, the doctor walks into the waiting room. They freeze and turn to look at the man. He’s older, probably in his late sixties and has a worn look on his face with kind wrinkles around his gray eyes. He has very little hair but smiles, though it looks tattered, like an old loved sweater laundered too many times and gone threadbare. All he needs to do is lift his eyebrow and both Tony and Bucky stand down.

“Which one of you is his mate?”

Tony and Bucky step apart. Straightening his shoulders, Tony raises his hand to show the gleaming white star on the center of his palm. “That’s me, sir.”

“Then I need to speak with you,” the doctor says and looks at Bucky. “Young man, we don’t smoke in the hospital.”

“Yes, sir,” Bucky replies and nods. “Sorry, sir. I’ll just step out and call Steve’s mom, tell her where we are. Is he going to be okay?”

“Yes,” the doctor answers. “Don’t worry his mother unnecessarily.”

Bucky nods again as he does a little bob before escaping through the double doors and down the long corridor. For one aching moment, Tony envies him. He bows his head and opens his closed fist to look at the mark on his hand. He shouldn’t feel like it is a burden, but a blessing. Yet, everything in today’s society forces him to think of how he’s been coerced by some bio-sociological imperative. 

“Son,” the doctor says and Tony turns his attention back to the elderly man. He notes the nametag states Doctor Hart and somehow his name just makes everything feel so surreal. “You’re his mate?”

“We are soul mates, but we haven’t bonded, yet,” Tony explains. He rubs his hands together and folds them between his knees as he places his elbows on his legs. He hangs his head. With a sideways turn of his head to face the doctor, Tony asks, “Is he going to be okay, doc?”

The doctor leans down and places a hand on Tony’s clasped hands. “He’ll be fine, though he’s a very sick boy.”

Tony nods. He’s always known this ever since Steve came over the first time with his mom after she’d been hired. Steve had been sick and his mother couldn’t leave him alone in their apartment. Instead, she bundled him up and brought him with her on the subway. Huddled in the mansion’s kitchen with a large mug of tea in his long slender fingers, Steve would have stayed unnoticed by the family if Tony hadn’t been attempting to hide from his father.

He’d slipped into the kitchen and had gone to the pantry door, except Steve was sitting in a chair right in front of the frosted glass door which had the word Pantry etched on it in elegant script. Tony yelped which was completely uncharacteristic of him when he saw what he thought was some kind of creepy zombie or ghost. Shit, the kid looked like he was about to drop over dead, or was already dead. Long dark circles marred his face and his lips had a decidedly gray color to them with bluish highlights. His eyes were owlish and heavy at the same time. He looked under nourished and far weaker than he had the first time Tony met him.

“What the hell?” Tony had said.

“Your father’s still ranting, you might want to hide now,” Steve said, ignoring Tony’s exclamation. He nodded toward the door to the kitchen and lifted the steaming cup of tea with the little paper tag hanging along the handle. 

“Shit, get out of the way,” Tony said and went to move Steve’s chair. There wasn’t enough time; he could hear the big bastard coming down the hallway from the dining room. “Shit, shit, shit.”

“Just go beneath my chair, the blankets will cover you,” Steve said. Purposefully, he flung open the quilt he had on and it formed a perfect tent over the legs of the chair. 

Tony looked at the door, heard his father’s rampaging voice, and ducked under the chair, scooting as far underneath as possible. Tony had never been a tall person, but still he had been thirteen at the time and curling up underneath a wooden kitchen chair was no mean feat. Steve adjusted the blanket and sat without moving as Howard entered.

“Where is he?” Howard yelled at Steve.

“Sir?”

“My son, he came in here.”

“Did he?” Steve asked and sipped his tea.

“Yes, you idiot. Who the hell are you, and why are you in my kitchen?” Howard said. If Steve hadn’t known before, he surely knew now that Howard spent the better part of the day as a good friend to the liquor cabinet. The smell from his breath even stunk up the place from where Tony lay hidden. 

“Sorry, sir. I came with my mother. She’s your new maid?” Steve said and coughed, thickly and wet a few times. It didn’t sound forced. 

“Your mother? Yes, the new help. Whatever, Maria takes care of that shit. Where’s my son?” Howard leaned closer to Steve as if his hulking mass might frighten the scrawny eleven year old. 

“Have you checked in the garage? Or perhaps his room?” Steve offered without answering the question. The little devil, Tony had thought. He hadn’t even lied and he’d been able to draw his father off track completely and send him astray on his hunt for Tony.

“Steve has always been sick,” Tony states as he addresses the doctor. He hates the truth of his statement. He wants, more than anything, to find a way to help Steve, to cure him of his many ailments.

“We were lucky you brought him in,” Doctor Hart says. “He had fluid in his lungs which we were able to drain, but he’s still weak and we have him on oxygen.”

“A ventilator? You have him on a ventilator?” Tony asks, his heart skips too many beats and he thinks he might be having trouble breathing himself. 

Doctor Hart grabs his hand and squeezes. “No, son, no. We have him on oxygen, a nasal cannula so he gets what he needs without so much of a struggle.”

“Oh, that’s good, right?”

He pats his hand and, while most of the time Tony would find it to be patronizing; instead, he finds comfort in the Doctor’s tired expression and soft eyes. “That’s good. We’ll need to keep him a day or so. I hate to keep him on Christmas Eve but it is for the best. I’d like you to go in now and Join with him. He’ll benefit from the extra strength, if that’s okay.”

“What?” Tony says and is a little aghast that a doctor would instruct him to have underage sex and to do it with a sick kid. He grimaces and flinches away from the man. “I don’t think that’s very appropriate.”

“What? No, no, no,” Doctor Hart chuckles and adds, “No, Join is to hold your soul marks together so that your souls can merge and you may sustain him. Didn’t you do this before you came in?”

“Yeah, yeah, we did. I just didn’t know it was called Joining?”

The doctor stands up and motions for Tony to follow him. As they walk down the hallway, the nurses scurry by and Tony absently wonders what happened to Bucky. Probably out fucking one of the nurses he found along the way. Though Bucky was faithful as a dog to Steve, he also happened to be as horny as one, too. 

They entered into the pediatric ward and, as they pass the doors, Tony looks away. He doesn’t like to see the doors all dressed up and decorated for the chronically or terminally ill children. It is a hard pill to swallow and even more difficult when he thinks of how sickly Steve is and how very real the idea of losing Steve at a young age is. It terrifies Tony. 

Entering into the room, Doctor Hart holds the door open and gestures for Tony to go to Steve. Though he’s hooked up to machines and has a tube in his nose, he looks better and actually smiles when he sees Tony. 

The doctor leans into the room and says, “Come see me when you’re through. I’d like to talk with you further, son.”

“Thanks, Doctor Hart,” Tony says and turns all of his attention to Steve.

“When do I get out of here,” Steve says and shifts as if he might try and get out of the bed. Tony rushes to his side and presses his shoulder back to the pile of pillows.

“Not until tomorrow at the earliest,” Tony says. 

“I can’t stay here, Tony, I have to get home. We can’t afford an overnight stay in the hospital,” Steve says and starts to unclip the cannula from his nose. 

“Newsflash, doesn’t matter whether or not you can afford it, you need to stay in the hospital. Shit, you had fluid in your lungs.” Tony reaches for Steve’s hand so that he might provide what little comfort and strength he can, but Steve flinches away. “Hey.”

“You don’t get it, do you? We can’t afford it,” Steve says and tugs away at the blanket. “My mom barely made the rent last month because of the last time I ended up here. It isn’t like your dad provides health insurance for us, you know.”

“But your health is-.”

“No, Tony,” Steve stops because his lung rebel and throw him into a coughing fit where Tony thinks he might need his inhaler again. This time he settles though, his face is flush from the exertion. He clears his throat as his eyes tear. “I can’t ask my mom to do this anymore. She hasn’t been feeling well lately herself. I have to get up and stand up and do my part.”

“Maybe your part is trying to get better now, so that you don’t worry her.”

“That’s a nice cliché, but it isn’t real life.” Steve folds the blankets and tries to slip out of bed, only Tony’s hand on his shoulder forces him to stay seated in the bed. “My mother needs to come anyway to fill out the paperwork. When she comes, I’m leaving.”

“No, you aren’t-.”

“Yes, I am Tony. You got no clue, you know. Some of us are the have nots-.”

The shot hits Tony like it a bullet from a high powered assault rifle. “What the fuck, Rogers, I’m here to help you and that’s what you say. You think poverty makes you special, makes you something better than the intellectual elite?”

“Nothing makes me special, Tony, nothing at all. I’m just a kid from Brooklyn. I ain’t got a dad with money and a weapons company.” Steve slips out of bed and balances by holding on to the rail. He’s obviously light headed and possibly even dizzy. None of this softens Tony’s heart as they spar.

“People like my father employ thousands of the middle class.”

Steve lifts an eyebrow and shakes his head. Even though he’s substantially shorter than Tony, he somehow makes it feels as if he’s towering over Tony. “Now, you’re defending him. The guy who gets drunk regularly and comes after you-.”

“At least it’s better than getting drunk on leave and beating my mother.”

The room falls silent as Steve glares at him. Steve has always set aside the negative memories of his father, only concentrated on the positive images – the war hero, the man who sacrificed everything for his country. He only confessed the haunting ghosts, the devil of that possessed his father when Tony appeared with a black eye and a swollen jaw from a run in with his father. 

“I think I’d like to get dressed now,” Steve says and keeps his eyes averted from Tony’s gaze.

“Steve, I-.”

“Just don’t, Tony,” Steve rasps as another wet coughing fit attacks him. He curves over the bed as he suffers through it. When Tony tries to lay a hand on his back, Steve shrugs it away. “Just go.”

“I can make it better,” Tony offers, but Steve stands up and goes to the small cabinet to retrieve his clothes. 

Tony relents and says, “I’ll go tell the doctor, you’re not staying.” He points a thumb over his shoulder. When Steve doesn’t respond, Tony walks to the door, looks back once, and then goes to seek out the doctor. He isn’t difficult to find. He’s instructing some of the staff at the nurses’ station and, when he sees Tony, he frowns and waves him over to an empty room.

“Come, sit,” Doctor Hart directs and ushers him over to a chair. “Tell me.”

“He’s not staying.” Tony mutters a curse. This is his father’s fault; he’d no idea Sarah couldn’t provide decent health care for Steve because of the absence of insurance. Steve was fucking right; he’d been an ass, an unthinking ass. “He doesn’t have insurance and his mom can’t pay.”

The doctor sighs and looks as if he’s heard the story before. “There’s public assistance, we could help them get medi-.”

Tony holds up his hands. “Don’t bother, the Rogers are too proud and too stupid to accept anything like that.” Tony shakes his head. “If you ask me, which I know you aren’t, but they’re just being idiotic about it.”

“Were you able to Join?”

“No,” Tony says and feels like the fool in front of the doctor. Stupid, god damned Steve, he cannot believe what a pigheaded fool the scrawny little shit could be. “He’s in a snit about having to come here as it is.”

“If he’s leaving, it’s important you convince him that you should Join. It will help him through the worst of it,” Doctor Hart says. “I could write it out as a script, at least then he might listen?” 

The last is a question and Tony concedes to it, he has no other choice. He has to force the idiot to listen to him. When the doctor finishes writing it and tears off the paper from the prescription pad, he hands it to Tony and says, “Can I give you some advice, son?”

“Sure why not, everyone always thinks that’s what I need anyway, more free advice thrown in my face.” 

The doctor waits to see if Tony is finished with his little tirade. When he is, he feels foolish and stupid so he waves the doctor to continue. The doctor settles on the edge of the empty bed and clasps his hands together.

“Most people think that soul mates are a rare thing, an impossible thing.”

Tony nods.

“It isn’t true,” Doctor Hart says and gazes down at his own hands. He peels them apart and shows Tony his own left hand. On the palm a stain of black mars the skin, it looks like hot charcoal seared right through the flesh and ate away at the cushion of epidermis. 

He winces when he sees it and looks up, startled and more than a little afraid. 

“Most people don’t know that somehow they missed their soul mate. Perhaps they were traveling on the subway and, instead of sitting down next to the quiet young woman with the plain face, they decided to sit next to the pretty one with the short dress. Or they went to get ice cream when they were supposed to go to the Laundromat. Little, everyday things change our lives.” 

Tony remains quiet and listens because he doesn’t understand what that has to do with the black mark on the doctor’s hand.

“Doctor Ruth Tilly up at Harvard published a treatise on soul mates and how the bio-sociological imperative is supposed to work,” Hart says. “If you take a look, really look at people’s palms there’s the slightest discoloration there, on everyone’s palm. That discoloration just means there was someone for you, but you missed them. They’ve passed in and out of your life and they are gone forever.”

“So, what’s it all supposed to mean?” Tony asks, he makes a mental note to research this Doctor Tilly as well as getting some kind of artificial intelligence to assist him in this kind of thing. That would be extremely helpful. He straightens up and focuses on Doctor Hart again.

“Anyway, the point is that the bio-sociological imperative shouldn’t be ignored.” He lifts up his scarred hand. “If you ignore it, if you find your mate and you don’t bond properly you will know it and it will be a mar on your soul for the rest of your life. Passing your soul mate, never knowing them is one thing, to know them and to lose them will completely destroy a part of you, son. Listen to me, I know this.”

Tony swallows hard and it hurts not only in his constricted throat, but in his chest and down to the tips of his fingers. 

“Understand?”

Just as Tony is about to answer, he hears a ruckus outside in the corridor that sounds suspiciously like Bucky. He races past the doctor to find out what the problem is when he sees the stricken look on Steve’s friend’s face.

“What? What happened?” Tony asks and the fear that something might have happened to Steve as he complained about him slams into him like a wrecking ball. He wants to crumble right there, crushed by the weight of it.

“It’s Steve’s mom,” Bucky says. “She collapsed at the party. They had to call an ambulance.”

All the words, all the information Tony’s heard over the last hour assembles and collides, finds its way into a macabre intersecting map directing him to the horrible conclusion. Sarah Rogers had been sick, Steve admitted to it not even a half hour again. Sarah Rogers hadn’t sought medical attention because she couldn’t afford healthcare. Sarah Rogers worked on Christmas Eve leaving her sick son with only a friend to watch over him because she needed the money to make the rent. Sarah is the only person in the world Steve has left.

He’s physically ill when he thinks about it. There’s only one thought in his head as he hurries down the corridor. 

Steve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the encouragement to continue this story. I have a lot of it plotted out and it will take a while to complete the entire story. I hope you will all stay along for the ride. As a note, please know that I will be taking from comics 616 sources as well as MCU. Some of the events will be necessarily changed because this is set in modern day and Steve is not going off to fight in WWII.
> 
> I hope you will enjoy the story nonetheless. 
> 
> BTW - no beta and I tried to edit, but if you find something off or weird or really in need of correction, please alert me to it! Thanks.


	4. Chapter 4

Sarah Rogers dies on December 30th with her son by her side. He holds her hand and bends over the bed, his thin form like the wraith of death itself. He knows how he looks, broken, fragmented, sickly, and nothing about today will seem right ever again. He listens as she tells him to always stand up, to always be a good man, to never let anything or anyone tell him he cannot have his dreams.

“Always stand up, always.” 

He would do it, because she always did. She always stood up to his father, to the world, to poverty. She always stood up. He wants to say yes to her, he wants to tell her how much he loves her, but mostly he just wants to tell her not to leave him. He cannot be alone, not in this world, this ugly cruel place. So, he bends over the bed with his head next to her chest and listens to her take her last breath. He’s there because it is his duty as her son, he’s there because he loves her. He’s there because he wishes she could take him along.

It is Bucky and Tony who hover over him, who bring him out of the hospital room. Tony’s friend Rhodey is there as well. He’s home from West Point for the holiday, and he watches Steve with a quiet eye as if he understands a little more than anyone else. Steve doesn’t know why, but having the three of them there, circling him makes him feel better.

Child services arrives and it is Bucky who heads them off. He escorts the rotund little lady and her assistant – a young woman - to the cafeteria in the hospital and discusses Steve’s status as Tony and Rhodey quietly make arrangements for the funeral. Steve wants to tell them he can deal with it, that he’s a man and can stand up for himself, but instead he walks over to the window overlooking the parking lot and stares down at the drifting flurries of snow. It isn’t much, just a dusting but enough so he can see footprints, heel prints, and the trails of people coming and going. He peers over his shoulder down the long hallway to where his mother’s body is – to where she left him here. He won’t see her footprints, he cannot follow. 

A hand on his shoulder and he turns around to see Bucky waiting for him. He expected Tony. “Hey, I convinced them you could stay at the group home with me. I think they’ll go for it. They still have a ton of paper work and stuff and you’ll have to go through the system.”

“I know,” Steve says. He does, he understands because Bucky lived in a group home for teenaged boys for the last few years. Teenaged boys don’t get adopted and teenaged boys were the hardest to place in foster homes. Bucky will be out of the home soon, he’s going to graduate high school in the spring and then join the army. He already spoke with the recruiter. 

“You’ll like the house mom, she’s pretty cool, got a decided nun like streak, but mainly she’s like an old grandma with some very definite weird ass love of comic books,” Bucky says and squeezes his neck. “Her sons live there, too. You’ll be good, okay?”

He sees the earnest plea in Bucky’s eyes. He knows everyone worries about him. The pneumonia left him weak, and his mom’s death drained every little bit he had. He coughs, it is residual and wet. He can feel Tony straighten and flinch behind him. It isn’t hard to know that Tony’s concerned, what he just wants to do now is be alone.

“Can we go now?” Steve asks and looks at Bucky. He pointedly ignores the waves of concern hitting him from Tony. He just wants to go to sleep, maybe for today, maybe for a week, maybe forever.

“We can,” Bucky nods and calls over to one of the social workers, “Miss Patrice?”

The young woman, probably no older than her late twenties, looks up from the tablet she’s typing on and smiles at him. The older lady is nowhere to be found. The young blonde woman’s thick plastic framed glasses are black while her hair is pulled back in a ponytail. She smiles and her nose squishes up. She’s pretty. 

“Yes, James?”

Bucky rolls his eyes in response. “She’s my new case worker, too. Kind of an overachiever if you ask me, but such a looker.” He turns his response to Miss Patrice. “Steve would like to get out of here. Needs some breathing room, think we can?” He thumbs it over his shoulder.

She joins them and offers her hand to Steve. He just stares at it for a second, but then remembers his manners. He takes her hand and she doesn’t shake it, she just holds on and for that he is grateful. When she releases him, she says, “I know it just sounds like words Steven, but I am sorry for your loss.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

“Your friend, James, has convinced us to temporary place you in the same group home. Luckily, there’s room. I’ll be making the arrangements for you to stay there. But tonight-.”

“Miss Patrice, he needs to be with someone-.” Bucky starts but it is Tony who ends the sentence.

“He needs to be with his family,” Tony opens up his palm and shows it to the woman. Steve keeps his fist closed. He’s not sure why, he doesn’t even understand his own actions right now, but all he can feel is numbness and he doesn’t want Tony around him. He doesn’t want anyone around him. 

“I’m not unsympathetic. I’ll get things moving, if you would like to stay with your soul mate tonight?” Miss Patrice says with a downward glance to try and catch his gaze.

Steve considers Tony and says, “I’m not sure Tony’s family would really welcome-.”

“Shit on that, I’ll punch Howard in the face if I-.”

The woman holds up her hands and tries to stop it as Rhodey says, “Way to make a good impression on the social worker, Tones.”

Tony snaps out a retort but Steve doesn’t catch it because Miss Patrice has already made up her mind and is saying, “We’ll bring you over to the group home. I’ll inform Mrs. Odinson right away.”

“Okay, thanks,” Steve says as Bucky smiles encouragement. He doesn’t feel encouraged; he doesn’t feel much at all. Tony practically growls at him while Rhodey keeps up a monologue which he thinks might be directed at Tony to ensure he won’t go ballistic.

After a while, Steve finds himself in a chair in the waiting room. His head is too light and his lungs hurt. He remembers when his mom would make him hot lemon with a touch of honey to calm the pain. He wishes she were here to do it again. Folding his hands in his lap, he ignores the light flash of his soul mark. He doesn’t want to think about what he has, and what his mother never had. 

At some point Tony sits next to him and says, “I wish you’d let me bring you home. It’d be better than a group home.”

“Would it?” Steve knows his voice sounds bitter, hurt, angry, but he thinks he has a right to be upset, to rail against the world. “I think your father would just as soon kick me out on the street than have me in his house. I know what he thinks of me, Tony, you don’t have to pretend.”

“Well, then you probably know what he thinks about me,” Tony reaches for his hand and Steve relents and, as soon as their marks touch, he feels the warmth spread and expand like an ever increasing gentle wave from the ocean. “Come home with me.”

Steve doesn’t want to cry, he doesn’t want to feel this isolated and alone when he knows he isn’t. Part of his soul has been torn asunder and placed in this young man next to him. He’s split and open, but he cannot abide by the pain. He cannot allow himself to have solace, not today, not when she’s gone. 

“Not today,” he whispers. He places Tony’s hand back on his own leg and releases him. “Good-bye, Tony.”

He doesn’t turn around as he joins Bucky and they walk out of the hospital as the dawn begins to rise on the last day of the year.

*oOo*  
Tony reclines back in his sports car and cannot remember which car this is. He has a bottle of whiskey or something, not sure, clutched in his hand. He looks around and notes red leather interior. Is this one his or his father’s cars? He damn well hopes it is piss-ant Howard’s favorite car. He giggles; he’ll pull a Cameron from Ferris Bueller and have the car chucked off a cliff or something. That’d be good, that’d be classic.

He downs more of the alcohol and it burns. He doesn’t like the taste but he’s acquired quite the skill for drinking it. He likes the way it makes the world nicely fuzzy on the edges. He likes the way it makes everything pink and purple and a blur of not so brilliant feelings. The butler told him to be careful when he caught Tony stealing from the liquor cabinet. Tony only growled at him.

Jarvis commented, “You are so much better than your father, sir.” 

He’d left Tony standing there with the bottle of alcohol in his hand and a metal taste in his mouth. He didn’t say anything. He just cursed the old man and went on his ride with his bottle tucked in his coat pocket. Now he’s looking out at the water and wondering what the hell he’s supposed to do. 

His soul mate, whatever that is supposed to mean, preferred not to go with him. His mother and father are out on New Year’s Eve celebrating and cruising the elite scene while he just drinks himself into a dazed stupor. He doesn’t even care anymore. He’ll leave for his last semester of college soon. Go back, finish up, and then start his first doctoral course work shortly thereafter. He thinks he’ll stay in Massachusetts for the summer. No sense staying here for the summer since Steve has decided to go slumming it with the bad boys. He shouldn’t be like that, but it is the way he feels.

He looks at his watch, thirteen minutes to midnight. He might go to the bar across the street and find some pretty little thing to fuck. He’s not of age to get into the bar, but no one is going to stop Tony Stark from having a good time. He can fuck, he’s done it before.

Jesus fucking Christ, why does it always come down to this? Being alone? Why the fuck does everyone leave him? Even his fucking soul mate hates him.

He gets out of the car and ambles over to the bar. The bouncer doesn’t even blink at his fake ID and just waves him in. The music beats and flashes and he thinks he might have a seizure just from the undulation of the crowd as the countdown begins. He finds himself wedged between a short brunette and a slightly taller but weightier blonde. The blonde has more tits so he hugs close to her and when she looks at him, her eyes are dilated even in the darkened room. She’s high out of her mind, and he nuzzles at her neck. She slaps him away, so he takes it as a no and turns toward the brunette. She’s not medicated and is quieter but receptive. Within minutes they moved from the center of the action to a back corner.

He’s biting at her throat while she has a hand down his pants. He grinds against her hand and listens as the countdown rings in his head. She feels hot and soft and he likes the way she tastes. She makes little mewling noises as he runs a hand over her breast while kissing her throat. 

Something pierces through his hand as if a knife slices him through. He hisses and startles away from her. “What the-.” He pulls away from her and cradles his hand to his chest. “What the hell did you do?”

“What baby? Come on, we can go to your car, I’ll-.”

The stabbing pain intensifies and he staggers away from her, holding his hand as if it hot wax has been poured on his palm. He hears everyone signing and clapping to the holiday and the New Year. He doesn’t listen, he stumbles past the crowd, through the thick room of people and smell and dankness until he finds his way outside, until he’s standing under a streetlamp and looks down at his hand.

The star flickers and pulses with white light but burns with a black ember in the center. He thinks of the doctor’s hand, of his lost soul mate at the same time his phone rings in his pocket. He thinks about ignoring it, but instead – on instinct alone- tugs it out of his pocket to see Steve’s number.

He answers, “Hello?”

“Tony?”

“Yeah?” He doesn’t know if he should be grateful or resentful. 

“She’s gone Tony. She’s gone and it’s a new year and she’s gone. She died last year, Tony. She’s gone.”

Damn it, what was he thinking? Why, why? He folds his fingers and says, “I’m coming.” He thinks better of it and says, “Do you want me to come?”

“Come, Tony. Please.” He recites the address in Brooklyn.

“I’m on my way, Steve, I’m almost there.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise the angst factor will settle down for a few chapters soon and we should have some good times (well, before the bad stuff happens again - these guys have a tough life you know!)


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve deals (or doesn't) with his mother's death. Tony plans something special for Steve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now the romance begins.....

Tony weighs whether or not Steve might actually be a product of the 1940s. After his abbreviated breakdown on New Year’s Day, Steve remains stoic. He’s not cold or unmoved, but there’s an impression about him of quiet reserve, brooding, almost reticent in its nature. He doesn’t push Tony away when comfort is offered, but he doesn’t seek it out after that desperate phone call. The death of Steve’s mother changes him, somehow. Tony worries how Steve looks at him, since Tony is usually a hot mess of emotions. 

Even at the funeral Steve maintains control Although he buried his pain, Tony still felt it through the bond. With the help of Bucky he’s able to convince Steve to allow him to pay for a decent funeral for his mother. He funnels the money from his expense account and his mother doesn’t raise an eyebrow at him when he does it. She just pats his arm and looks down at him with pitifully mournful eyes. He feels terrible when he thinks she’s only sorry because she lost her best servant. 

He makes sure to keep the funeral understated and respectful, but he orders bundles of white tulips, her favorite flower. He only knows this little factoid, because he pages through Steve’s sketchbook and sees all the flowers, the white tulips in portraits with his mother. It is gorgeous and sends spears of something foreign through him, like he actually experiences the loss that Steve feels. He fears that the abyss gouged in the middle of his chest by the death of Sarah Rogers is really what Steve experiences but covers up with his steady, balanced expression.

The funeral is a quiet affair. The attendees are a small in number but it is an intimate crowd and he is surprised to see his own mother appear at the back of the church. Tony sits with Steve, at the front of the church with his soul marked hand entwined with Steve’s. He hopes the steady beat of his heart, the firm solidity he offers is felt by Steve. He cannot be sure because Steve has closed part of himself off. It is almost as if he’s aged in the days since his mother’s passing. It is almost as if the boy before him has become the man. 

After the funeral, life moves forward and Steve moves into the little group home with Bucky. Bucky and Tony clean out the apartment Steve shared with his mother. Tony should return to college, but he doesn’t, not truly. The semester starts up again and, while Tony should leave for Massachusetts, he loiters and stays behind. It doesn’t matter; he’s on independent study anyhow and is just biding his time until graduation. He could have graduated three semesters ago, but his mother wanted him to stay in college and get socially acclimated, which is just damned weird, because he’s at least three or four years younger than the average college senior. But he spent the time getting socially acclimated in other ways, and that was fun he has to admit. Oh the things he learned. That was all before the soul bond mark. He doesn’t regret abandoning that part of his life, not really. Being known as the campus playboy had its perks but also had its downside. 

So he hangs around New York, especially Brooklyn and Mrs. Odinson’s group home. They have a tendency to call it Asgard because the group momma happens to be from Norway and her sons are named Thor and Loki. He cannot believe it when he first meets them and suddenly understands the insanity of Bucky. Living under that roof for anytime will drive anyone a little goofy. Steve ends up sharing a room with Bucky and Tony finds he’s not too terribly jealous. The situation is good, because Tony wants to know what is going on in that pretty little head of Steve’s and Bucky is the best way to find out. Tony is not spying, not at all. Plus, it is the only way Tony can ensure Steve is safe. 

Tony does have to disappear every few weeks to go up to his lab and work on his thesis. He usually goes for a week, stays awake the entire time, and literally eats coffee. Sometimes, he even throws in some blueberries just to say he ate something healthy. He makes great progress on his research, and when he starts his doctoral program he’ll be miles ahead of everyone else, again. Nothing new there. 

When he returns to New York in early February he shows up at Steve’s school with his racy little white Audi. He leans against the car and waits for school to be dismissed. When Steve spots him his ears go a brilliant red and Tony throws his head back and laughs. This elicits an intensity of red that Tony didn’t think was possible for a human being to blush. 

It starts a routine that Tony falls into with quick abandon. He likes to pick Steve up from school, tease him a bit, fight with him a lot more because – shit, he can be a pisser sometimes – and look at him a lot more. Steve has a kind of frail beauty that Tony never really appreciated before because that beauty represents a quiet strength. There’s strength there and power too, building, bubbling to the surface. 

He also sees a change in Bucky, since Bucky has plans after he graduates high school to join the army and fight in the war. He wants to go to Afghanistan and do the right thing. Tony’s not sure he understands what the right thing is, but he sits in Mrs. Odinson’s living room (which she calls the lounge) and listens to Steve and Bucky make plans about joining the army. Every once in a while Bucky looks up at Tony with a knowing smile. Steve will never be able to join the army; they all know that – not with his list of ailments. 

One cold afternoon in February after Tony has returned from a stint in Massachusetts he’s sitting watching Thor mangle the DS as he tries to play Mario Kart. 

“It is well and truly broken,” Thor yells at it and flings it across the room. His weird ass brother slinks in the room and snorts at him.

“You have no patience,” Loki says and picks up the Nintendo DS only to flip it open and start playing as he walks to the couch. 

Steve is curled up in the corner of the couch with no socks on and only a t-shirt. The place is freezing and, although Tony has repeatedly asked Steve to get a hoodie on or, at least, freaking socks, Steve just sits with his sketch book perched on his bent knees and continues to draw. He’s oblivious to the action around him. 

Mrs. Odinson keeps a nice place for her brood. She has two of her own boys of whom Tony finds out only Thor is her biological son, since Loki was adopted some time ago. Loki reminds Tony of a cat, a very standoffish cat while Thor is more like a golden retriever – happy and jumpy all the time. There’s another kid in the house, named Clint. He’s the circus brat or something or a bird. Tony doesn’t know. It seems like the House of Asgard as the boys call it, picks up all kinds of strays.

“Red turtle shell?” Thor sputters out as Loki continues to play. “How can you do what I cannot? You have magic, my brother.” Thor slaps him on the back but Loki only gives him a disinterested glance. Loki’s whole long slender frame rattles against the friendly batting from his brother. Steve mumbles a disinterested sound and then falls into only the scratch of the charcoal against the paper.

Tony tosses his tablet to the side. He’s been working on the latest upgrades to his first iterations to artificial intelligence. “Steve?”

Steve looks up from his drawing. He has charcoal smears across his one cheek. Tony leans over and uses a thumb to clean it off. 

“I want to talk to you,” Tony says and stands up. He needs a little privacy, he doesn’t want to do this with an audience. Least of all, the weird one. “Can we?”

Loki looks up at him with a knowing glance and snickers. He slaps at him and tells him to shut up. “Stop being such a pervert.”

“Be careful to whom you speak, Master Stark.”

“Really, Thor, who the hell talks like that?” the other boy, Clint walks into the room. He has a chicken leg in his hand, a bag of popcorn under his arm that he’s munching on. Clint’s reputation precedes him when it comes to video games; the boys often refer to him as Hawkeye. Clint keeps telling everyone it is because of what he sees, and that his aim is true. Tony thinks he might be a little high all the time.

Clint throws himself on the couch with enough of a bounce that it upsets Steve as he draws. Steve grumbles out a retort but mutters it. Tony wonders whether or not Steve might be afraid of all the other boys. Except for Loki – who is just a freak all around – the other boys are considerably bigger than Steve. Thor is enormous and must eat his mother out of house and hearth. While Clint isn’t huge, his frame is studier and muscular, he spends a good part of the day in the gym and even joined the local archery club. As rumor has it, he was a circus rescue. Tony smirks at that one. 

“Come on, take a break,” Tony says as he reaches over and plucks the charcoal out of Steve’s hand. Steve glares at him, and Tony knows he’s stepped over the line. “Sorry, just want to talk.”

Steve shrugs. “Then talk.”

“In private.”

Steve lets out a heavy breath and places his sketchbook with his charcoal pack on the side table. He follows Tony toward the hallway to the kitchen. Once Tony finally drags Steve out into the small alcove, he says, "So I wanted to ask you something."

Steve peers over Tony's shoulder but he can't really see anything since he's shorter than Tony. "Can’t this wait? I really have to finish up my sketches for class tomorrow."

"You can do it with your eyes closed, I want to ask you something and -."

"I'm not going to live with you," Steve says and folds his arms. His attempt at looking fierce fails miserably. One thing that Tony has noticed is Steve’s defenses are up, high and walled all around him.

Tony rolls his eyes and says, "I know that, you idiot. I wanted to ask you out."

"Out?" Steve scrunches up his face, and it reminds Tony of someone with a bad stomach bug, or possibly trying to figure out a complex math problem. He wonders if he looks like that when he’s working on some of his higher level crap.

Tony sighs and adds, "We haven't actually been out, not really."

"Outside?" Steve cannot possibly be this stupid, Tony thinks and he frowns. "Oh."

"Yes, out on a date. We haven't dated, and I thought it might be nice since we have these," Tony says and opens up his hand. The star pulsates hot and warm in his hand when he's nervous. It scorches him now. "We've kind of just ignored that aspect."

“What about your father?”

Tony puffs and shakes his head. “Forget him.”

“Kind of hard since he hates me,” Steve says and hedges a little toward the lounge again. "I thought you wanted to-." Steve stops, and changes course. "You like girls."

"Yeah, so?" Tony crosses his arms to mimic Steve or maybe to wall himself off from a frontal attack. Is Steve closed off from him completely. Has the wound his mother’s death left really done this to him? God, he is no good with emotions. He needs to talk to that new girl Rhodey knows. Sandy or Pepper or something. She seemed to give him good advice.

"I didn't think this would really change that," Steve says but keeps his hand closed. 

"We're mates for god's sake, we're meant to be together," Tony says. He cannot comprehend why this is so hard, why he feel the nervous tick in his chest just where his heart might be. What the hell will he do if Steve says no? Steve loved the idea of being soul mates and bonded. What the hell happened?

"I thought you wanted to, you know, date others," Steve mutters and glances around the small alcove. It has strange wood carvings of beasts and odd snow monsters. 

Now the irritation just builds. What the hell is Steve thinking? Maybe he's still in shock because of his mother's sudden death. "Okay, I get it, maybe you're not ready, but I thought it might be nice to get your mind off of things." Tony gestures around, but he's not sure what the heck he's referring to in the little house.

Steve colors, but not from embarrassment. "I don't need pity, Tony. You don't have to date me just to make the orphan feel better."

"What?" Tony yelps. "What the hell? Fuck -."

"Watch your language," Steve hisses. The house mother does not like swearing, Tony’s been told many times. Loki does it just for fun.

"Okay, Gramps, I will." Tony pokes at his thin rail chest. "I will if you get your head out of your ass. I want to date you, not some chick off the street, you."

Steve averts his attention for a second but then turns back. "You don't have to, just because of the mark. I don't want you to ruin your life because of me."

"Shit." With Steve's reaction to his curse word, Tony inhales deeply, and releases it in a slow measured stream. "Okay, I'll watch my language. But you get me so frustrated. I want to date you, you little--, little snot. I want to date you not that chick, Jane, from Thor's physics class and not her big boobed friend, Darcy, you."

"Because of the mark."

"Because I like you, the mark just gives me the -." He stops he hates to admit he needed the push, the courage to do it. "It just gives me the assurance that you'll accept. Now, will you accept you, creep, or not?"

“That’s really romantic, Tony, thanks. What a great nickname, creep.”

“Shut up and answer the question,” Tony replies and his patience wears thin.

Steve stares down at his feet and whispers, "You're sure this isn't some pity date, because I don't want that. I got enough pity around here to have a party."

Tony snickers a little at Steve’s pathetic attempt at a joke. He slips his hand under Steve's chin and says, "Not on your life." 

The look Steve offers him in return ignites the burning, the heat deep within his belly, tightens the knot of desire. His blue eyes are darkened with dilation and his sweet mouth has just a light gloss of saliva and it glistens in the partially lit hallway. The sight tenses him, and he fights the want, the need. Steve is far too young, too vulnerable. He pushes it down and says, "I want you to know. I want you to feel what I feel."

Steve lifts his marked hand and it fits perfectly into Tony's palm. Their hands clasps and the beat of their pulses echo back and forth. "I feel it."

"Then let me take you out," Tony murmurs. Their lips are close, almost touching, as Tony lids his eyes. "Let me take you out."

"Yes."

The screech of triumph from Thor startles them apart and they laugh as the tension releases. Tony frees Steve’s hand and says, “Then it’s a date.”

“Sure, Tony.”

“Saturday night?”

Steve nods and walks back into the lounge. Tony rubs his hands together and smiles. He has no idea if Steve realizes it or not, but they are going out on Valentine’s Day. He’ll make it special, he’ll make it good. He looks down at his mark and it flushes with warm reds and cooler blues. It will be perfect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a short chapter and I apologize for that. I wanted it to be longer, but I am going away on vacation and cannot finish it prior to leaving. I will try and update while I am gone. It would be great to hear from you, if this story works because I am planning on wrapping things into the movies (eventually - believe it or not). It would be great to know if you're interested and what you are interested in seeing. Right now, this promises to be a long story and I am willing to add special things for my readers!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony and Steve go out on their first date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains discussions of the Catholic and Islamic religions. Neither discussion is meant to insult either religion. If this offends you, you might want to skip some of the discussions on the date.
> 
> This chapter also contains some reference to underage sex but nothing in detail or graphic at all. Just a reference to past events.

Tony picks out a small restaurant that happens to be a converted brownstone not far from where Steve lives at the House of Asgard. He decides not to go into Manhattan or to find something too expensive. He wants to impress but he doesn’t want to distress Steve. What he knows is that Steve has a sense of practicality about him. He doesn’t like waste; he hates extravagance, while he especially likes to keep things subtle and respectful. 

When he spent time with Steve after the funeral, one of the things Steve had mentioned was how beautiful and quiet it had been. He thanked Tony and let Tony hold him for a few minutes. Tony hopes he would have given this small thing to Steve even if they hadn’t been soul mates and foretold to be a force in one another’s lives.

The small restaurant caters to the neighborhood, and it offers a hip menu but with some standards. He knows in the end that Steve is a meat and potatoes kind of guy, so he doesn’t want to upset the apple cart too much with too many strange and exotic dishes. 

He spends an inordinate amount of time getting ready for the date. He picks out several shirts and ties, and then throws them all in the back of the closet only to start over again. He stops as he tugs off another shirt and stares at it in his hands. It occurs to him that he’s blown this all out of proportion. Why is this so fucking important to him? Why does this date have to go so well? Tony knows how to date; he’s an expert at it. Damn it, he can bring a college aged chick out on a date, impress her enough, and get her to sleep with him that night. Easy peasy.

This date, this date with Steve, he feels it will define them, change them, and bring them from this nebulous state to something special, something Tony’s longed for all of his life. A sense of belonging and family. He shakes his head, how can this be Steve, why is it Steve?

Usually, he passes most of his time with Steve debating or arguing or sniping at each other. They’ve always had a kind of fun adversarial relationship until recently. Even after they first were marked, they stumbled about trying to figure out what the hell it meant. 

“My dad is going to kill me,” Tony had said as he gazed down at the mark on his hand. “And why the hell are you symbolized by a star?”

Steve had only shrugged. “What’s the triangle mean?” Steve opened his hand and showed it to Tony.

“I don’t know, the Holy Trinity?”

“Don’t be crass,” Steve replied and traced the outline of the triangle on his palm. “Why is your dad going to kill you?”

“Seriously, you have to ask that?” Tony had rolled his eyes. “Thought you were smarter than that Rogers. I’m already a disappointment, now I’m a souler. What the hell is he going to say to that? Soulers are dependents.”

“Dependents?” Steve grimaced as if it was a dirty word.

“Yeah, he doesn’t like the idea of depending on anyone else. He thinks it shows weakness, soulers and their connection to one another is just the epitome of co-dependency.” Tony scrubbed at his hand and he was well and truly stuck with it.

“It doesn’t come off,” Steve said.

“It doesn’t have to be permanent. Everyone knows marks aren’t anything until their bonded.” Tony had said but even as he had denied the bond, he also wished it would be the truth. He didn’t want to give it up. This was something that was his, all his, and none of his father’s making. “Still don’t know why you get a fucking star and I only get a triangle. Makes no fucking sense.”

“Can’t question destiny, Tony,” Steve said.

“You’ll do what destiny calls for?” Tony had asked.

This stopped Steve dead in his tracks, and he considered it before he answered. “No, I have to say, no. I’ll do what’s right, what’s best, but not what some mystical force says I have to do.”

“So, you won’t want this?”

Steve smiled. “Not what I said. What I said was I would do what is right and best.”

“Is this right and best?”

“Don’t know, not yet.”

That had been months ago when they first discovered their marks. Awkward might be considered a kind word for their next steps. Tony avoided Steve for a few weeks, though that was easy because he went back to school and tried to ignore his hand. Several of his dates noticed it, some were turned off by it, others seemed to like the challenge. He used it when he could for something to talk about – mostly he described his soul mate as in a vegetative state when he was looking to get laid. Now, when he thinks about it, Tony’s mostly embarrassed and ashamed of his actions. He feels as if he flushed himself down a toilet trying to ignore the mark.

At some point during the intervening months, the idea of what the hell the mark meant and why he had one suddenly took root in his brain. He started to play with it, tug and weave it. He can’t even fathom why he didn’t question it at first, but he suspects he’s been frightened of it. When he’s truthful with himself, he knows that’s the answer. The first few weeks and into the first months of the mark, he went wild and tried to deny it existed. Now, he just wants to know more. This thing, this mark on his hands designates his life will be a force; it will be set apart and somehow special. He comes to cherish it and looks at Steve as part of the puzzle, the riddle of why and how it happened.

He also comes to realize what a witty, thoughtful, and even cunning individual Steve can be. This is something that Tony appreciates and never saw before he started to look and see. Learning to see is something that Steve taught him very early after the mark appeared.

“You want to be an artist, huh?” Tony had asked when he came home for break and found Steve sitting in one of his favorite bistros. Later, he understood that Steve was waiting for his mother to finish up at his family’s mansion. He often wondered why Steve would follow his mother to the house. Why didn’t he just stay at home, especially after Howard effectively kicked him out?

Steve shrugged. “Maybe, I don’t know. I think first I have to do my duty and serve my country.”

“You’re pretty good,” Tony said as he leaned back and slung an arm over the back of the chair. “I can’t draw a straight line, got no talent.”

Steve peered up at him and had a smile on his face which Tony recognized for the first time as a cross between adorable and dorky. How could anyone do that? Steve shook his head. “Has nothing to do with talent and everything to do with seeing.”

“Seeing?” Tony scuffed. “I can see just fine, dude. I can see just great.”

Steve looked up and studied him, only to shake his head. “You look but you don’t see. There’s a difference.”

“And you sound like Yoda.”

“Who?”

“Hot damn, you like walked out of the nineteen forties or something. You don’t know any modern references at all. Don’t you watch TV or even go to the movies.”

Steve had been kind that day; he hadn’t mentioned how they didn’t own a television because they couldn’t afford the cable access, or that he never went to the movies because of the price of a ticket. Tony had been blind and stupid. Now, he understands the price of Steve’s medicines and care had nearly bankrupt Sarah Rogers. He had a new found respect for her and wished he’d been able to know her better before she’d died.

He huffs. Enough with the trips down memory lane, he needs to find something to wear. He digs through his closet again and decides it is better to wear something that will put Steve at ease, rather than something to impress. He pulls out a great pair of jeans, a Pearl Jam black t-shirt and a suit jacket. That’ll do. He smiles.

Now, he only hopes Steve will like his gift.

*oOo*  
Steve prepares for his date while Bucky leans in the doorway to their room. He’s never really had a real bedroom to himself. He used to have a small closet type room off the kitchen in his flat with his mom. It couldn’t fit a bed in it, but it was large enough for a small desk and his drawing materials. Instead of storing food in it, because it was supposed to be a pantry, his mother allowed him to use it as his own space. He loved it. Though the lighting proved to be no good for painting, he still enjoyed the space to create. He barely has that now in the group home, but at least he has friends here. No one judges him, not even Loki. He sulks around and hates everyone, so Steve doesn’t take it personally.

“You gonna be okay?” Bucky asks with a scrutinizing glare to his expression.

“Why?” Steve combs back his hair and hopes his asthma doesn’t act up. No one likes a death performance on a date – or at least that’s what he thinks since he’s never had a date before. He hopes Tony doesn’t want to dance or anything insane like that.

“Well, Stark can be an ass, you know,” Bucky says as he waltzes into the room. Bucky has always accepted Steve in any way with or without the mark on his hand, whether Steve likes boys or girls. Bucky doesn’t give a hoot, which is why Bucky is Steve’s best friend. So many people have beaten him down, but never Bucky. 

“I know, but he has a point,” Steve says and stares at the mark. 

“It’s just a mark, doesn’t mean anything if you don’t bond with him,” Bucky says. His voice is low and serious, Bucky never gets serious. “Don’t bond with him tonight.”

Steve rolls his eyes and sighs. “God, Bucky, I don’t need the sex talk. I’m not bonding with Tony tonight. It’s just a date.”

Bucky loiters near their twin beds but eventually falls onto his and says, “I don’t know the lure of the bond, wanting to be something bigger than yourself, I think it might be pretty powerful.”

“Might be,” Steve says and sits across from Bucky on his bed. It has a quilt his mother made for him one Christmas on it. He can still smell her when he sleeps.

“I know you’ve always wanted to do something important, Steve. I know you want to make the world a better place for the little guy, but don’t think that Stark is the way to get there, you know. He’s just a guy with money.” 

“I know who he is,” Steve says and outlines the figure of the triangle on his hand. “I know that having the mark means we have a destiny together. I know that if we bond we’ll be a force in each other’s lives, and that might be something important. I also know that most bonds fizzle out and mean nothing in the end. I have done my research, Bucky. I plan on pursuing what I want, not what some magic force tells me to do.”

Bucky laughs. “No all powerful force gonna control your actions, huh, Solo?”

“What?”

Bucky stands and knocks Steve in the shoulder. “Get out of here, you reject from the forties. You’re gonna be late for your date.”

“Hey,” Steve says and stands. “Thanks.”

“No problem, take care of yourself.”

“I will,” Steve nods and leaves the room. By the time he descends the stairs, Tony waits for him in the lounge. Mrs. Odinson is there to give him a lecture on the house rules which consist of -to be back before midnight, that he’s only fifteen and he’s not allowed to drink, smoke, or have sexual relations. He colors when she cocks a brow at Tony to make sure he knows better. Tony only raises his hands in silent surrender to the house mother.

When they leave, Mrs. Odinson pecks him on the cheek and wishes him good luck. 

The ride to the restaurant is quiet and uncomfortable. Steve feels like he should fill the silence up but he has no idea what to say or do. His hands are empty and useless in his lap. He’s known Tony since he was eleven but now his heart wants to ram its way out of his chest. 

“The bistro is just up here a little ways,” Tony says and he turns the car. “I thought we might not want to go into the city for this. I know you don’t like to make a big deal out of things.”

Steve nods and his mouth is dry and his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Tony keeps babbling then because Steve doesn’t know what to say and obviously nerves force all kinds of words and thoughts to pour out of Tony’s mouth.

Steve watches him, and thinks about how absolutely stunning Tony looks. He smolders if that is possible. The way he turns his eyes and, with a glance, causes all kinds of twisting in Steve’s gut and lower. He loves the way Tony smiles and laughs. Yet, he cannot see what Tony could possibly want with him. 

“You don’t have to,” Steve blurts out.

“Have to?” Tony says as he parks the car. “Lucky tonight, found a spot so close!”

“You don’t have to,” Steve repeats. He hates to think of this as a pity date or as something Tony feels obligated to do because of the marks on their hands. Tony is curious, always curious so it is within the realm of possibilities that he is only taking Steve out because he wants to explore what the marks are all about.

Tony finishes parking the car, turns it off, and then looks at Steve. “I don’t have to do what?”

Steve opens his hands on his lap and says, “This. We don’t have to. I don’t want you to feel obligated just because we have marks on our hands.”

Tony sighs and throws his head back on the rest. “What the hell am I going to do with you, Rogers? I want to date you. Yeah, the mark woke me up a little, but I want to date you.”

Steve frowns a little and says, “I just can’t figure out why.”

Tony grabs the handle of the door and opens it. “Neither can I, you jerk. Now get out of the car.”

Steve smiles and follows Tony. It is a cold February evening and the lights from the windows glow in low amber hues. The city seems somehow breathing but in a slow slumbered sleep. Tony ushers him up the stone steps with a hand to the small of Steve’s back. He’s not sure how he’s supposed to react to it, but something warm spreads in his chest and he knows he blushes. 

As they enter the small restaurant, Tony guides Steve to the side and the host brings them to a side table near a fireplace. It isn’t too secluded but it isn’t in the middle of the room. Steve sits with his hands in his lap and looks around. He rarely went out to eat in a fancy restaurant. 

Eventually they order and Steve cannot remember what he picks out ten seconds after he’s said it. There’s one thing that Steve doesn’t do and that’s beat around the bush. He likes to be straight about things and not pretend so he says, “Okay, then we’re gonna date, what would you like to know about?”

Tony screws up his face and shreds the bread he has in his hands. “You’re not very good at this, are you?”

“Never been on a date before, don’t know what the actual protocol is.”

“There really isn’t a dating protocol.” Tony motions with a lift of his shoulders. “You just do what comes naturally.”

“I don’t think anything comes naturally,” Steve mutters and adds, “Okay then, why don’t you tell me what you’re doing up at school?”

“You don’t want to hear that,” Tony waves him off.

“Why not? You go up there and come back looking like the walking dead or something.” Steve stares at him pointedly.

“Okay, okay,” Tony relents. “Artificial intelligence.”

“Like robots?” Steve asks.

“Something like that, but a little more advanced. I’m looking to create the ultimate artificial intelligence. I’ve been working in engineering and robotics for a long time but now I think I need to branch out.” Tony stops when he notices Steve smiling at him. “What?”

“A long time. Geez, Tony, you’re like eighteen or something.” 

“Going to be, going to be, don’t age me, man,” Tony says but pauses as the waiter places their food in front of them. Steve ordered a dish of tilapia over sautéed zucchini with corn and tomato sauce while Tony went with something completely foreign to him. Steve’s not even sure he’d recognize it as food. 

“What is that?”

“Falafel, I like to try new things,” Tony says and indicates Steve’s plate. “I thought you were a meat and potatoes man?”

“Most of the time, but I like to think I can be adventurous.” He cuts into the tender fish and tastes it. It isn’t bad, but probably not his favorite. “Have to be careful though, I’m allergic to a lot of fish.”

“That’s good to know, don’t want to kill my soul mate over a tunafish sandwich.” 

Steve laughs and they get along throughout the dinner on amazing small talk that teaches Steve more than he ever dreamed about Tony. He learns that Tony doesn’t really know if he believes in God, because no one ever brought him to any church or temple. He’s not even sure what religion he is, if any. Tony seems fascinated by the fact that Steve is Catholic and still practices, though they get into a debate about the Church and its standing on homosexuality. 

“Just because I think they’re wrong doesn’t mean I should disregard all of their other teachings, Tony.” Steve sips the coffee they ordered after dinner. “I’m not a follow the leader kind of guy because I think everyone should make their own decisions.”

“How the hell do you expect to go into the army and follow orders?”

“Don’t know, haven’t figured that one out, yet. Still trying to figure out how to get into the army first,” Steve says and quickly changes the subject again. He doesn’t like the looks people give him when they realize one of his dreams, to serve and honor his country is beyond him. 

Tony can’t find an answer to that, because they both know Steve will never be accepted. “There are other ways to help people, Steve.”

Steve chuckles. “Art doesn’t help anyone.” Steve puts his hand up and says, “Don’t try and find a good respond Tony, I know about art and its value. But it isn’t really what I think I’m supposed to do. Haven’t you ever thought you’re supposed to do something beyond this, something bigger than your own skin?”

Tony meets Steve’s gaze and says, “That’s exactly it, isn’t it? I’ve wanted to do something big since I first crawled and built my first robot.”

Steve places his hand on the table, inches away from Tony’s. “You will do great things, Tony. You’re a genius; you’re miles beyond everyone around you.”

“Maybe that’s why we have these?” Tony says and offers his marked hand. “Maybe, we’re supposed to do something great together?” 

Steve bows his head but there’s a melancholy when he peers back up at Tony. “I don’t think I want to just stand in the shadows, Tony. I want to do something good in my own right.”

Tony scowls. “That’s not what I meant, at all.” 

His hackles rise and Steve reaches the rest of the way across the table and clasps Tony’s hand. “I know that, Tony, I understand that. But-.” He looks to the side and then back to their entwined hands. “I hope there’s something more for me. I want to do good, I want to make a difference.”

“How is going to a war zone going to make a difference? You’ll just be another grunt.”

Steve tightens his hold and says, “I don’t like bullies, Tony, I never have. I think whoever wants an education should be able to get an education. I don’t like the idea of people warping a beautiful religion to their own means. I don’t think that what it means to worship God. I think it means we treat each other fairly.”

“Isn’t that your beliefs and not theirs?” Tony asks. 

“Maybe, I don’t know. But I think everyone should have the right to choose without fear. I don’t think that should be just an American belief, I think it should be universal.” Steve pauses and adds, “In some countries we would be sentenced to death for being together, for going out on a date. Is love wrong? Should it be someone else who decides?”

“The marks did decide for us,” Tony says.

“Marks don’t appear on people unless you’re willing to accept it, unless you already know down deep.”

Tony sighs. “How the hell do you know that?”

“You’re not the only one who can do research. I do have a library card, you know.”

“A card carrying member of the library,” Tony teases. “How did I miss that one? You are a danger to all humankind.”

Steve laughs and his cheeks heat as Tony smiles that smile that smolders and lures at the same time. Tony leans in closer and it sets something in Steve’s core to shiver and he tenses against it. He wants this, Tony is so attractive. He doesn’t mean to say it out loud but somehow it comes out in a quiet murmur, “You’re so beautiful, what can you see in me?”

Tony doesn’t back down or ease away. If anything his eyes darken and he presses Steve’s hand to his mark and says, “What I see is beautiful. I wish you could see it.”

And Steve does in a way he cannot describe. It vibrates and brims on the edge of the link between them, the binding that may someday become the bond. He witnesses Tony’s remarkable intelligence, the shining bright light of it, while at the same time he sees the awe he induces in Tony. The fact that Steve doesn’t back down, the idea that Steve dreams of good and is good, down deep to his bones. It drives a passion, a desire in Tony so profound it changes him and he wants it, he craves it.

“Let’s get out of here?” Tony whispers and he settles the check and they make their way through the crowd. Tony touches him, keeps touching him in a way no one else ever has. He’s new to this and it terrifies him in the subtlest of ways. He tries not to let it show, and he hopes that the link, the binding between them, cannot pick up such an understated concern.

Tony shows him back to the car and once they are seated he waits for a moment before he addresses Steve again. “I have to go back to school. My mentor is giving me shit about not being around.”

Steve nods; he doesn’t know what else to do but to understand what Tony states. They have their responsibilities. Maybe it’s better this way. He hasn’t confessed to Tony that although his true yearning is to be with Tony, to explore this linkage they have, he knows it is impossible. Someday, someday, soon it will all end. He comprehends this because Tony’s father came to him shortly after he buried his mother. Howard came to him and told him to stay away from Tony, to stop licking the shoes of the rich, and do what his mother would want.

“If you want some good advice, son,” Howard had said. “You’ll disappear from his life and you’ll do the right thing by your mother’s memory.”

All Steve wanted to do was sock him one in the jaw for calling him son and for desecrating the memory of his mother. 

“You’ll leave my son alone and you’ll go about your own business. Tony shouldn’t be with the likes of you. You know he’s a different class of person than you, you know he would just be held back by the likes of you.” Howard stared down at him without any compassion. “You’ll only hold him back. Bonding will just show the world he’s a co-dependent personality, not an innovator, not a genius. Leave him be.”

Steve hadn’t promised anything. Just let Howard lecture him for a half hour outside the Church the Sunday after his mother had been buried. He just stood there and took it and recognized a bully when he saw him.

So, when Tony tells him he needs to go back to school, Steve isn’t surprised. He knows Tony has to finish his projects, he knows that Howard is probably pressuring him; it is the reason Steve resisted the date in the first place. He doesn’t want to cause Tony any pain.

“But I wanted to ask you if you would visit me during Spring break?” Tony asks. 

“Wh-what?” Steve looks up at Tony and realizes he’s been staring down on his empty hands the entire time. 

“This is kind of my gift to you, I thought it might be nice if we could have some time together. Just the two of us,” Tony says. “I think I could swing it to get Mrs. Odinson to allow you to visit your soul mate. There shouldn’t be a problem.”

“I just-.”

“We could see some sites and catch a movie or something. You know do couple things,” Tony says. “And you could come to the lab. I could introduce you to the whole place. You could see my work on my A.I.. Meet my friend Hank.”

“Oh,” Steve says and he thinks his heart might need more room in his chest because everything is tight and constricted, but not in a bad way, in a good way.

“Would you come?”

He should refuse, but he can’t. This is Tony, so he swallows back his fear and says, “Yes, I’d love to come to see you then.”

Tony grabs and pulls him into a hug. Tony slips a hand along the back of his neck and presses forward, their lips graze and touch. It is soft and tender like all of their kisses thus far – chaste. But with the smallest move, Steve invites Tony and the kiss suddenly wraps around his whole heart, his whole body with its intensity. Tony pursues and consumes all at once and Steve offers and gives with honest abandon. Both of Tony’s hands cup Steve’s face and the need, the want pulses through the kiss in a way Steve never thought possible. He’s never been kissed before, didn’t know it could be this, this union of desire, passion, and yearning. It only serves to drive him forward, wanting more. He searches with his hand, touching Tony’s chest, feeling the width and sleek form. 

He wants more and seeks it. He might be scared of many things, but he has always been courageous. So, he lets his hands slide downward, caressing and touching as he does. It is Tony’s hand that stills his; it is Tony’s hand – his marked hand that stops him. They touch soul marks and clasp their hands together – and the world changes. It pulsates a new with light and sounds and a river of emotions shared and linked. For the first time, Steve understands what it might mean to completely bond. 

The world shifts and comes into a different type of focus, so brilliant and colored, and resolute that he cannot grasp all of it. It bursts out of his soul and hurts with a pleasure he barely tolerates. He wants to weep for the beauty and thinks he could perish if they ever did bond, because this – this souls interlinking together – changes everything.

They break their kiss but keep their hands together. Neither of them can catch their breath and Tony cradles Steve’s chin in his hand. “Okay?”

Steve nods. It might be difficult to breathe but it isn’t impossible, he understands now nothing is impossible. 

“Happy Valentine’s Day.” Tony leans over and kisses him again. 

For Steve, it is nothing but perfection.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope, hope, hope, you liked this chapter! It is very difficult to work this the way I want because I need to eventually bring this into the movie verse. (It will get there, I swear it - though some things will definitely be AU). I hope you liked it!
> 
> Thanks so much for your encouragement on this story. It has been wonderful to read your feedback. Once again no beta, but if you notice anything off or wrong, please tell me and I will try to fix it.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Both Tony and Steve have doubts

Tony leaves for school two days after Valentine’s Day and Steve buckles down with his own studies. He decides it is best to focus on academics and not the pulsation of another soul within him. He thinks of the link as the bond, but he knows that it will become stronger once they actually do bond. He cannot even imagine the possibilities. How it will feel to have another person’s feelings and the idea that some soulers share thoughts. It intrigues and terrifies him in equal measure. 

The boys take turns cleaning the kitchen after dinner which is always a ruckus affair. Thor likes to smash his glass after dinner which, for some reason Mrs. Odinson takes in stride. He uses only paper plates and cups, now. Loki eats quietly in the corner, speaking only to his brother. Sometimes Steve feels sorry for him, but quickly ends up shying away from the brooding Odinson because of his quick and vicious retorts. 

Clint disappears many nights and Steve often furrows his brow until Bucky tells him he’s going to get wrinkles in his forehead. He wonders at Mrs.Odinson’s open door policy with the boys and how Child Services doesn’t audit her. He shrugs it off and continues to clean. Bucky has a date and disappears as Steve rolls up his sleeves. He has marks on his arms again, which he’s tried to hide from Bucky. Another fight – but he couldn’t stand the bullies at school belittling a girl. He had no idea what their beef was, but he stopped it – with his face and arms but he did stop it fast enough to allow the girl to get away.

As he scrubs at the dishes, Mrs. Odinson sweeps into the room. She always looks like a queen, like she has a royal air about her. He likes her well enough, but she isn’t mom and he’s glad she doesn’t pretend to be. Still, he doesn’t understand why Bucky called her an old lady, other than the fact she acts like she’s been around for ages, like she’s immortal or something.

She taps the table as she settles in a chair and says, “Come, sit, Steven.”

He puts the last dish in the drying rack, wipes his hands on the dishtowel, and pads over to the table to sit across from her. She purposefully slides her chair next to his and leans towards him.

“It is time we talk.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He smiles but he knows it cannot reach his eyes. There are very few things these days which will make him smile fully.

She reaches and touches his hand, the one with his soul mate mark on it. No one else has ever attempted to touch his marked hand. It just isn’t done, not even his mother when she was alive. It is considered an invasion of privacy. He stiffens when her fingers graze his palm. The triangle flickers.

“Your mate has requested time with you. I am apt to allow it, though I might have to use some magical influence to ensure that Child Services doesn’t interfere.” Her eyes are set and her dark hair falls in long lazy curls. She has a regal beauty about her that he’d like to capture one day in his sketches. 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

“I will do it, you see. Risk using my influence for you,” she says as she lightly caresses his hand. It isn’t alluring or sexual in nature, it feels more like the soft stroke of a mother. “Your destiny will change the world. It will change many people’s worlds. It will change my sons.”

His hand freezes from her touch. “Ma’am?”

“When I complete my burden here, when my boys have learned the ways of which they cannot comprehend truly without experience, we will leave. They will forget all that they have seen and heard, they will not know you, not truly, but they will know of you.”

Now, she’s talking in riddles and he thinks she sounds a lot like she might be smoking some of that weed Tony is always talking about. “Excuse me?” 

She pats his hand and laughs in a soft tone. “You will not understand all of which I tell you tonight, but what I will say to you now, please heed my words. Your link is strong, you will break and falter. It will stay true. Believe in it, when you are faced with conflict you will have no other choice but to do the right thing for him. Do it, because your souls are one and I see the destiny you seek. People misunderstand destiny. Destiny is something that you decide, not something that is decided for you. Destiny is controlled only by yourselves. If you chose it, it will choose you.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Steve says but with no idea to what he just agreed. When she drops off to silence, he waits for a few minutes before he asks, “Are you saying I can go and meet Tony for Spring Break?”

She stands and adjusts her sleeping robe. “Yes. I will make it so that you can do it.”

“Thank you, ma’am.”

She looks down at him and she feels like she’s forty feet tall. “Do not disappointment me.”

“No, ma’am.” He nods. He figures the entire lecture must be some obtuse warning about underage sex and leaves it at that. 

Over the next few weeks, Tony calls him nearly every night. He misses nights and, when that happens, Steve lies in his bed and listens to Bucky snore. He’ll miss Bucky’s nasally noise when he finally ships out. He’s joining the army right out of high school and will leave for boot camp four days after graduation. Steve will be alone. He knows the other boys will be there for him, even Loki who sometimes likes to admire his artwork. 

The words Mrs. Odinson said swirl around in his head like a maelstrom. With no idea what to make of it, he doesn’t confess them to Tony. Instead, he listens with his phone cupped to his ear about Tony’s day and his inventions. His interest in green energy and his development of artificial intelligence. He complains about his father, how Howard reprimands his interests and keeps telling him it won’t do to study _crap_ when he’s in the weapons industry. He refers to someone named Stane a lot as well. Some of it Steve follows, the rest Steve lets float around in his head as he drifts off to sleep. 

Before Spring break, Steve ends up in the nurse’s office at school because of repeated heart palpitations. They want to do a whole work up on him and he dismisses it. He knows his condition of atrial fibrillations, and recognizes when a trip to the doctor is necessary. Mrs. Odinson picks him up from school and frowns at him when he remains unmoved by her arguments to go to the doctor. 

“What good would all that I have done for you, when you will die early?” She glares at him, but he doesn’t back down. 

He stays in bed for a day waiting for the attacks to cease. Mrs. Odinson schedules at appointment with the cardiologist and drags him with her anyhow. He ends up on new meds which make him dizzy and nauseous. When Bucky sees him sitting on the edge of his bed with the prescription bag in his hand, he sinks down next to him and squeezes his shoulder.

“What good is a mark if it isn’t going to mean anything?” Steve asks as he shows his hand to Bucky. “I thought it would mean something. But it doesn’t. Look at me, Bucky, look at me, really.”

“Maybe that mark there means you gotta do something with your life, maybe it just means you have to find your own way,” Bucky says.

“When did you get to be a philosopher?” Steve closes his hand and tightens his grip on the bag of medicines.

“When I started rooming with dork who can’t see the forest for the trees.” Bucky slaps him in the arm and stands up. “What, you want to go and see if we can beat Clint?”

“Beat him? He’ll decimate us; he always does, regardless of what game we pick.” Steve says and tosses the bag of meds on the bed. Standing up, he follows Bucky out of the room.

“Personally, I think he got your boyfriend to rig the game.” Bucky goes down the staircase ahead of Steve. Steve hesitates at the landing – the word boyfriend ringing in his head. He smiles and clasps his hand in a fist over his heart. Things will be okay, he knows it.

*oOo*  
Tony flies back to New York for the weekend before Spring break. He has to fill out some forms to allow Steve to visit him. Because of the fact they are marked soul mates, Steve is allowed to visit Tony in Massachusetts. He files the paperwork and doesn’t complain because at least the US has gotten more progressive on the laws regarding soulers. Since Tony and Steve are marked they are considered family. Literally, if Tony could get Howard to agree to it, Child Services would allow Steve to live with the Starks now that he’s alone. Of course, his father has to be a dick about it and leave Steve out to the dogs. Tony has no end of swear words for his dick wad father. 

In order to submit all the paperwork, he has to have signatures from Howard. With a little bit of work, he gets Stane to slip the papers in with others for his father to sign. He could have tried to forge them, he knows he could do a good Howard Stark, but he wants this to go as smoothly as possible. With the signed papers in hand, he stands in line for a good hour and gets everything approved in another three hours. He grumbles quite a bit and thinks he might have to rig a few more games for Clint as payback for all the damned work he’s going through just to get the permission to bring Steve to visit Boston. Just to teach Steve a lesson or two –but he won’t because when it comes right down to it, he would do just about anything for Steve.

“I don’t think we should tell anyone,” Tony had said after the marks appeared. It had been about a week and he’d successfully hid his mark from his parents. 

Steve screwed up his face like Tony had just stuck him with a dagger in the stomach. “Why not?” 

“I told you my father won’t like it. He’s of the old school,” Tony replied.

“Oh the school that believed soulers should be burned at the stake or better yet hung because no one could control them?” Steve had frowned at Tony and shook his head. “That day is long gone Tony, they understand the idea of bio-sociological imperative a lot better now. It isn’t looked at as a threat to society but as a building block to keep society running.”

“Still, soulers are discriminated against, no one likes them but the military,” Tony said as he opened his hand. 

“Well then your dad might like it, he is a weapons manufacturer.”

That little gem gave Tony confidence to confess the mark on his hand to his father, thinking that Howard would be pleased that his son would someday be a force in the world, could change the world. The only thing Howard had said had damned Tony.

“Don’t worry, I’ll find a way to get rid of it. I have the money to find a way to change it.” 

“But I don’t want to change it,” Tony had replied. 

“I think you do,” Howard said as he chewed on his cigar. “Tell me, who’s the little whore?”

Tony had stumbled backward with his marked hand cradled against his chest. “What?”

“The girl? Who’s the girl?” Howard tapped on Tony’s fisted hand.

Before he thought better of it, he blurted out, “Steve.”

Tony still tries to bury the rest of the memory of those moments. Howard’s reaction changed everything for Tony. He stopped trying to impress Howard, stopped studying artillery and weapons development. The words echo in his head – how Howard would ruin Tony, how Tony was nothing but a little slut and pervert. Tony distances himself from Howard, stops trying to please him, stops striving to make him proud.

Even though the modern wave is acceptance of the soul mate mark, people are still put off by it. To know that society and human need has chosen and picked someone to change the world is daunting. To know that the world needs to be changed but not how is frightening. Some say that the change can be either for the good or the bad. He knows it depends on your point of view and what needs changing. He hasn’t any idea what he and Steve will need to do in the future. If the mark will mean something or not. Sometimes, people get marks and nothing ever comes of it – they abandon their marks, or they break the bond, or something else happens and the imperative however important fades and disappears. He doesn’t understand it all, and he wants to – so he mentally notes to go find the professor Ruth Tilly that the doctor at the hospital talked about when he goes back to Boston.

He decides to spend the week in New York preparing to bring Steve back with him. Steve has no idea he’s in New York, yet. He wants to surprise him and he also watches him. He knows it is weird and slightly stalkery but he wants to find out what’s going on in that pretty little head of his. 

He parks his car about a block from the school and slinks near the sides of buildings and alley ways as Steve exits school. Tony knows Bucky has a free last period and, as a senior, leaves early for his job, so Steve will be on his own. Steve leaves the school and Bucky isn’t with him. Tony tenses a bit as he slides back into the shadows. He has a large backpack on and he’s carrying his sketchbook and art case. The school Steve goes to allows him to take two art classes because of his excellent art portfolio. He watches as Steve hurries along the block and passed the buses at the curb. Steve should be taking the bus home, but ignores it and starts around the block. It’s a long walk but he doesn’t look back at the buses and walks along the sidewalk, but keeps looking at the school.

A group of older boys flood out of the school and Tony sees Steve’s face go pale. He races along the walk from the school. Tony frowns. One of the boys sees Steve and points him out. In a juggernaut they converge on Steve, but he refuses to turn around and acknowledge them. Several throw insults Steve’s way and – of course the idiot can’t just keep going – he turns around and faces them. 

“Son of a bi-.” Tony says and takes off from his hiding place. The guys are big, bigger than Tony; he isn’t a fighter, not hand to hand that is for damned sure. 

One of the larger boys taunts Steve and pokes at him. “Souler, you think you’re better than everyone else?”

Another boy knocks the sketchpad out of Steve’s grip and this just sets Steve off when the boy picks up the pad and flips it open to a drawing of Steve’s mom. They goad him and call him names. Steve launches his entire body at the boy, slamming his fist into the boy’s jaw. Before Tony can get there another boy bashes his backpack against Steve and he stumbles to his knees. The first and biggest boy seizes Steve’s collar and jerks him upright.

“You go right ahead and keep thinking you’re saving that little slut in class. She’s gonna be mine one way or another.”

“I don’t think so, you creep,” a girl shouts at him.

Tony halts and turns around when he sees a girl come up to the knot of boys hanging over Steve. He flattens himself against the building and watches. He knows this girl, she’s the friend of Jane in Thor’s class. Her name is Marcy or Darcy or something like that. 

The largest boy drops Steve and faces the girl. “I can let the souler be, but it’ll cost you.”

“How about this, would this be payment enough?” The girl points something she has clutched in her hand at the boy and it flings out a wire and he’s suddenly on the ground shuddering from the electric jolt. The other boys put up their hands and back off.

“Nice,” she says and reaches a hand to help Steve up onto his feet. “Okay?”

“Yeah, thanks Darcy,” Steve says and wipes away the slushy snow.

“Least I could do, you’re a good guy, Steve,” Darcy says with a smile. She slings a hand over his shoulders and says, “Let’s clean up.”

Steve colors and retrieves all of his papers and backpack. The other boys slowly retreat as Steve and Darcy right his sketchbook. 

“You didn’t have to stop them the other day, but you did.”

Steve only shrugs. “It was the right thing to do.”

“Yeah, but thanks.” Darcy stands up as Steve straightens his jacket. When Tony catches a glimpse of Darcy he sees her eyes, the expression, the soft way her lips part. “You want to go over to the diner and work on the English lit homework?”

“Sure,” Steve says and reddens again. 

Tony stays back and frowns as he watches his boyfriend leave with a girl. He’s not sure what to make of it, other than the fact Steve has obviously come to her rescue before and now she tasers guys when they confront Steve. He thinks about the mark on his hand and, for the first time, realizes that Steve might be the entire reason they have marks on their hands. In his research, he discovered that the mark rarely means both parties are destine for great things. It is usually one who is marked as a person of consequence and the mark on the other designates one who will support and ensure the great one can prosper. He’d never even given it a thought that it wouldn’t be him. He always imagined Steve in the supportive role.

It freezes him, and he turns away from Steve and his friend. He walks back to his car and sits behind the wheel for a good thirty minutes. Tony’s never been a second fiddle kind of guy. He always takes the spotlight. He’s brash and arrogant and brilliant. He’s been on the cover of magazines since he was toddler because of his genius. When their marks appeared, Tony assumed he would be the leader and Steve would be there to support him, not the other way around. For the first time, he realizes it just might be Steve whom the bio-sociological imperative had chosen.

He rubs at his face. Won’t dear old dad love that one? His son, not only a marked freak, but a secondary player. When he revealed the mark to his father and Howard had turned on him, he thought to wait it out. 

Many these days tried to cash in on the soul mate mark. There was a vast underground of people who tried to counterfeit the mark and then push it off in public as the reason they should win an elected office, get a grant, receive money to change the world, or any number of other reasons. No one trusted them and the stain of their criminal behavior filtered down to real Soulers like Tony and Steve. The whole thing was mess and Tony knows it.

He rams the car into gear and drives back to the mansion. He ignores the calls from his father and trudges up the stairs. This whole fiasco, shit, he thinks. Maybe he should listen to his father and find a way to break the link before it becomes the bond. He recalls the doctor with the blackened palm, a mark of dishonor – more so than the actual soul mark. It is ironic that people look in disgust at those with the soul mate mark but also sneer at those who have abandon the calling. 

He flops down on the bed and opens his hand up, looking at it. What the hell is he supposed to do with it? He thinks of Steve, of kissing him for the first time. It tightens something not only in his groin but in his chest. It feels right and good and something so warm and welcoming that he never wants to let it go. But Tony Stark isn’t second fiddle and never will be.

*oOo*  
He picks Steve up from the House of Asgard the first Saturday of his Spring break. Steve listens to Mrs. Odinson and nods a lot to all the advice she gives him. She glares at Tony and when she bends down to kiss Steve’s cheek, she whispers something in his ear that turns him a bright red color. Bucky only snickers.

They jump in the car and turn toward driving to Boston. It will take quite a while, especially with traffic and the holidays coming up. Tony flicks on some Pearl Jam and taps out the rhythm with his thumbs on the steering wheel. He doesn’t look at Steve, his innocent face, his sweet eyes with those fucking long lashes. How is he supposed to resist any of this? He frowns. The funny thing is – it has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with the damned idea that the soul mate mark might not be centered on him. He feels like a shit and just wants to be alone for a while, but he promised Steve so he has to buckle down and deal with it. 

He turns up the music louder. 

Steve stares at him for a moment as if he might say something, but thinks better of it and opens his small sketch book, pulls out a pencil, and starts shading or some shit. Tony doesn’t give a hoot and really needs to deal with his attitude problem.

Maybe Howard is right. Maybe he should just forget this destiny crap and forget about biological or sociological imperatives and ditch it all. If it isn’t Steve and him, then the need will be passed along to some other suckers. He doesn’t have to accept it, no one does.

He scratches at his palm and turns up the music again. Steve makes a face at him and sidles away from him in the seat a bit. They hit terrible traffic in Connecticut, not a big surprise, so Tony angles over to stop at a restaurant to eat. He’s not really hungry and could use a drink, but knows he won’t get it. So, hell, dessert is always good.

He sits in the diner with Steve and that stupid expectant look on Steve’s face riles him up. “What?”

“I just- I wanted to thank you for going through all that trouble,” Steve says and plays with his silverware. “I know it was a pain and Mrs Odinson told me that you had to deal with a lot of red tape.”

“Yeah, it was a pain in my ass,” Tony gripes and flips through the many paged, sticky menu. Christ, do they ever clean these things? “What’re you having?”

“Burger?” Steve says with a shrug of his shoulders. 

When the waiter comes over, a young boy with more zits than confidence, Tony orders for both of them getting the same thing. He wants a beer but since he knows they will never serve him, he asks for two chocolate shakes.

“No, chocolate for me,” Steve says.

The waiter stops.

“I’m allergic,” Steve answers Tony’s unspoken question.

“Shit, is there anything you’re not allergic to?” When he asks it, he slings it out like a slap to the face. Steve flinches as if he’s been hit, but goes stoic again and just asks for water. 

After an uncomfortable pause, Steve tries several times to engage Tony in conversation. It doesn’t work. Tony’s head is still wrapped around his problem. What is he going to do? Will he keep the link? Should he consider the bond? Just dump it and go on with his life? He glances at Steve once and thinks – he didn’t even really like him all that much before the damned mark. They used to fight all the time. 

Their meal comes and Steve eats slowly while Tony just shoves his aside. “Aren’t you going to eat?”

“Not hungry.”

“It’s good food you shouldn’t waste it. There are people starv-.”

“Then send it to them,” Tony snaps back. 

Steve closes his mouth and a muscle on his jaw twitches with tension. He finishes off his meal without a single word. They go back to the car and the only thing Tony ate was a few greasy fries. He shoves the chocolate shake in the cup holder and starts up the engine. Steve slides in next to him, his head bowed, before he reaches across the space and clasps Tony’s hand on the clutch.

“I think we shouldn’t do this,” Steve says.

“What?”

“I think it would be best if we didn’t do this.”

“Do what?”

Steve takes a deep breath and says, “I’d like to go home.”

For a brief second, Tony almost cuts him deeply by saying he doesn’t have a home, but he swallows down his words. “Why?”

“I don’t think you want to be around me, Tony.” Steve pulls his hand away and, for a second, the whisper of the emotions roiling in Steve hit him and then dissipate. “It is pretty clear; you don’t want to be around me, even without the link.”

“You’re imagining things.”

“Am I?” Steve says and challenges him. He puts his mark up. “Show me.”

Tony glances at the mark pulsating in his palm, waiting for Tony to place his own against it. “No.”

“Okay, then I’d like to go home.”

“No.”

Steve presses his lips together in a thin line, nods, and reaches back to the second row of seats to grab his bag. He tugs it over the seats without hitting either one of them. Grabbing the door handle, he pushes it open and says, “Thanks, then, I’ll take the bus.” 

_What the hell?_ He is fucking this up. He knows it, but it is what he does. He fucks up relationships, his father hates him, his mother keeps her distance. The only person who gives a crap about him is Rhodey but that’s only because he’s away most of the time and doesn’t deal with Tony Stark - bullshitter all the time. 

Steve walks to the corner of the parking lot headed toward the center of the little asshat town they are in before Tony jumps out of the car and races over to him.

“Steve, get back in the car.” It’s starting to drizzle out and Tony hates the rain.

“No,” Steve replies and keeps right on walking away from Tony. 

Over the course of their little honeymoon with the soul mate marks on their hands, Tony had forgotten what a pain in the ass Steve can be. He jogs forward and catches Steve by the elbow. “Get back in the car, now.”

“Oh you think saying it louder is going to work?” Steve says and shakes his head. “You know, you can be just like all the rest of them. Think because you’re bigger than me you got the advantage. Well, think again.”

Since it is barely Spring, the misty rain carries a chill with it. Tony stuffs his hands in his pockets and says, “I don’t think anything. What I know is that you’re being an ass.”

“I’m being an ass? I’m being an ass. Since you picked me up you’ve barely spoken two words to me,” Steve retorts. “You act like just being with me is a pain in your ass.”

“Well, you’ve always been a pain in the ass, I thought we agreed on that, already.”

“Can we dial down the Tony Stark snark for once?” Steve says. The rain splatters over his face and his hair plasters to his forehead. 

“Snark, you haven’t seen-.”

“And I’m not going to. Thanks, Tony,” Steve turns on his heel and walks a few more steps away before Tony can say anything, before the center of the palm of his hand stings with a piercing pain. 

Panicked that he is throwing away everything, he yells, “I saw you with that girl.”

Turning, Steve furrows his brows and waits for Tony to explain.

“Last week, I went to your school to surprise you. You were with that girl, some girl and there were other boys. They tried to beat the crap out of you,” Tony babbles but he cannot stop himself. It pours out of him and he can’t put it back where it belongs because it’s all out there – glaring and bright and obscene. “I watched and I saw you and I knew, just knew that it didn’t have anything to do with me, and everything to do with you.”

“What?” Steve squints his eyes at Tony as if to clarify what he’s seeing might help him with what he’s hearing. “I don’t. You were in town last week?”

“I’ve been in town for the last week.”

“You didn’t come to see me,” Steve says and Tony can watch the gears moving in his head, see him putting things together and tearing things apart. “You didn’t call. I thought it was because you were busy, but you were in town.”

“I was in town to get all the paperwork in place. The point is I saw you with that girl.”

“Darcy? You saw me with Darcy?” Steve shakes his head and says, “She’s a friend, Tony. You don’t have anything to worry about. It’s not like that.” He takes a step closer to Tony and the rain starts in earnest now. 

“That’s,” Tony says and looks up into the gray colored sky, sees the pouring drops. “That is so not the point. So not the point.”

Steve sighs. “Then tell me what the point is because I’m a little tired of you treating me like you don’t even like me.”

Heat flushes his cheeks and Tony feels like shit. Not only has he ignored Steve for the past week, but he’s a selfish prick. “I was upset because I saw you defending her. I heard what they said, that you defended her.”

Steve opens his hands and says, “Yeah? So?”

“Steve, they were huge. Probably on the football team or something and you’re-.”

“Not.”

“Not, and you put yourself on the line, stuck up for her.”

“I don’t like bullies,” Steve simply states.

“Yeah, I know,” Tony says and recalls the many times Steve hid Tony from his father, distracted and mislead Howard so that Tony could escape his father’s wrath. 

“So, what is this all about?”

The shame wells up so deep and so heavy it’s hard to even breathe. It drowns him. “I thought the mark was for me. I thought you would be my support, I thought the mark was something special for me,” Tony says. “And now, I can see, it was meant for you all along.” Tony points at Steve and says, “You- you’re a good guy, Steve, down to the core. You defend people and help little old ladies across the street, and feed stray cats, and save baby birds.”

“Tony, I-.”

“I’ve never been in someone else’s shadow, not like this,” Tony says. “I don’t know if I can play the supporting character. I wasn’t made for it.”

Steve falls silent, his head bowed. The rain continues in a torrent now, but Steve remains unmoved. When he looks up at Tony, there’s something soft and sorrowful in his eyes. He pulls his duffle bag from his shoulder, unzips it, and digs out a bag to hand to Tony. Tony grabs it and holds it.

“Open it.”

Tony only hesitates a moment before he peers into the canvas bag. Pill bottles and nebulizers, an epi-pen. He could open a pharmacy with all the drugs in the bag.

“Those are my medicines, Tony,” Steve says. “I don’t think you have to worry about it. I’m not the hero, I never will be. I’ll be lucky to make it to thirty.” Steve states all this with a flat voice, a faraway look, and his hands in his pockets. He lifts his shoulders. “I’m not the guy to lie down on the wire, Tony. I’m not going to be able to get my dre-.”

Before Steve can complete his sentence, the thought, the idea of Steve dying, and dying young, slams into Tony as if he’s crashed his car into a brick wall. It hurts, it devastates, it destroys every part of him until he’s fragmented by the force of the collision. 

He grabs hold of Steve and crushes him. He never wants to let go, he never will let go. “No, no, no.” He cannot think of Steve gone, he cannot think of Steve dead. What the hell had he been twisting himself up over? He can be such an idiot sometimes. 

“Steve, don’t- don’t say things like that,” Tony says and pushes away just enough to lean his forehead against Steve’s. “I can’t lose you, I will never lose you.” He clasps his marked hand to Steve’s and the link flares with vibrancy and radiates with urgency. He leans down and searches to find Steve’s mouth. He tastes the rain, he tastes the need, he tastes the fear and frustration and the connection, the link that makes them one. He murmurs as he kisses, over and again. “I’m sorry, sorry, sorry.”

As they kiss, Tony begs entrance and Steve opens his mouth. The taste, the exploration thrills him and he wants more, needs more. When he comes up for air, he realizes they are wet and chilled to the bone, and panting in the heat of their kiss.

“Forgive me?” Tony says as he holds onto Steve.

“Yes, always,” Steve says.

“Let’s get back in the car,” Tony says. He tucks the bag of medicines in his jacket, determined to figure out what exactly they are for and what can be done about it. He should be able to offer some assistance considering his wealth. He folds his hand in Steve’s and guides him back to his car. 

“Tony?” Steve says as they hop in the car and Tony turns the heat up full blast.

“Yes?”

“I don’t mind being the support, the secondary to your prime in the whole soul mark, bio imperative thing,” Steve says.

Tony smiles and says, “The feelings mutual.” And he thinks it is. In fact, he knows it is. He reaches over and they allow their hands to fold together. The pulse is there, true and solid. He can accept it whatever it might bring because it is Steve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is not the chapter I intended to write, but it demanded it - so here it is. A lot of new questions might be in your head - all will be answered, eventually. I hope you liked this chapter.
> 
> Please note that updates will be coming once a week from now on. Sorry they can't come faster but I have two Big bangs to write. I can see this story as a long one since it will encompass the events of IM1 and IM2 as well as some of the events within Cap1 (to a degree considering no WWII here). I hope you will continue to like this story and will enjoy it.
> 
> One other note, I am kind of too tired to actually post - so if there are grave errors please point them out!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With the bond, comes the future. Can Steve face the future, knowing what might happen to Tony? Can he make a sacrifice to save Tony's life?

After, Steve realizes he should have known everything was too good to be true. Considering the universe seemed to want to tear them apart from his mother’s death, to Howard’s true hatred of him, and his rebellious lungs and heart, Steve shouldn’t be surprised at all. He tries to hide the fear and the anxiety, but he doesn’t have a choice. This is how things go, this is the truth. Life isn’t about roses and chocolates, and beauty and love. Life is about hardship and starving children in countries where the rich don’t care, and the people wallow in the muck. Life isn’t beautiful, life is harsh and ugly. He never allows it to completely dissuade him from the belief in the goodness in humankind, his mother taught him that. But he is a pragmatist. He follows what his mother’s lessons were.

But he does, he knows what his mother told him, what she always professed to him. That you stand up and make something of yourself, you don’t like something in the world, you change it. You don’t like how things are working out? Figure out a different way, that was her philosophy and he’s always lived by it.

He wants to stand by it now, but this isn’t only his life in the balance. It isn’t only his dreams. He looks down at his a palm sees the blazing soul mark there and the throb of it deep in the hollow of his being. He shouldn’t have to do this, but maybe being Tony’s soul mate; maybe this is what it is all about. He feels a new resolution, a new commitment. He knows this is the right path, and when he decided this his heart settles in his chest from its harsh rhythm. 

Swallowing, he straightens his shoulders and knocks on the door. One of the house staff that Steve used to know when his mother worked for the Stark’s opens the door. Steve nods to the man whom he thinks might be named Jarvis if he recalls correctly. 

“May I see Tony?”

Jarvis tilts his head and says, “You know the way, Steven, please.” He gestures for him to continue to the garage where Tony must be working on his cars. Steve smiles at the older man, peers into the empty study to make sure Mister Stark isn’t lurking, and then builds up his courage to face Tony.

This isn’t how it is supposed to be, Steve knows that. They should be celebrating; they should be madly, crazily in love. Things are never the way they seem. Steve might be naïve in some things but he isn’t stupid. He just hopes the memories of Boston will stay with him forever, after tonight. He stops in the hallway off the kitchen. 

“God,” he whispers and sums up his courage again. “Don’t know if I can do this.” He squeezes his eyes shut and thinks of the second night at Tony’s apartment in Boston after he’d fallen asleep in the guest bedroom. He recalls waking in the middle of the night with a coughing fit. He’d sat up in bed, threw the covers off, and curled over to clear his lungs. He always placed a glass of water by the bed to help him, but he’d forgotten because he wasn’t somewhere familiar. He shuffled to the en suite bathroom filled a glass, drank it all, and then filled it again. For good measure, he took a few puffs of his inhaler, and then walked back to the bed with his glass.

He’d nearly dropped it when he saw the silhouette of Tony in the door frame. He wore a sleeveless t-shirt and low slung sweats. His hair stuck up in a rumpled mess. He looked shockingly beautiful and he took Steve’s breath away. He hurriedly placed the glass on the table and felt uncomfortable with Tony staring at him bare chested and thin. He crossed his arms over his chest and said, “I was just getting water.”

Tony had pointed over his shoulder and said, “I was up, working on some stuff, heard you coughing.” He didn’t take his eyes off the line of Steve’s shoulders. He’d licked his lips and said, “I wanted to make sure you were okay. It was cold in the city today and -.”

“Getting caught in the rain didn’t help any,” Steve said. “I know, happens all the time. But I’m good.” He desperately wanted Tony to leave. He looked everywhere else but the fine sculpted lines of Tony’s body. He didn’t want to think about what it would feel like to touch his skin, to feel the solidity of muscle mass against his own. 

“Do you need anything?” Tony asked.

Steve bit into his own lip trying not to say it, but the words had tumbled out in a jumbled mess. “You, want, I want- no,” he said. “No, I don’t want anything.”

Tony had taken a step into the room and Steve so wanted him to finish those steps. It wouldn’t hurt anyone, Steve knew it. He wanted it. They both knew they would be together eventually. Why wait?

“Steve,” Tony had said and his voice sounded off, tight, choked.

“Yes?”

He shook his head and said, “Good night, Steve.”

“Tony,” Steve had said before Tony could escape.

Turning back to him, Tony said, “Yes?”

What excuse could he use? What could he say? “Don’t leave.” It was all he could come up with. It was all that he had. 

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” Tony had said, his face warring with his words.

“I want you here,” Steve said and experienced a flush of exhilaration at his own brashness. “Please.”

“You’re too young.”

“I’m not asking you to sleep with me, not in that way.” Steve motioned for him to enter the room and like a magnet Tony followed Steve’s hand gesture. He stopped only a step away from Steve. Again the courage bubbled up and he said, “Kiss me.”

He raised his marked hand and Tony followed the gesture. They closed fingers over knuckles and the spark flared and sung within their nerve endings. A flash and a brilliance Steve hadn’t experienced before and he saw something, something odd and strange. He saw the shining mark like an emblem on Tony’s chest. He saw Tony wounded and hurt and dying. He saw Tony in an armored suit. He stumbled back as Tony did the same. 

“Shit,” Tony said and cradled his hand. “What the hell was that?”

Steve had shrugged. He hadn’t known then, but when they spoke to Professor Tilly the next day, he understood. They’d seen the possibilities of their future. They’d seen what could be with the mark, with the bonding. When they talked to the professor and she explained the marks and bonding to them, Steve could only think of one thing over and again. The sight of Tony alone, in some horrible desert place, wounded, his chest splattered with shrapnel, and dying. 

He’d asked her a question. “I saw a lot of different things. Are they all true or just one?”

“The future is fluid and nothing can be marked as true or false. The paths that you will choose will decide.”

“So, the mark doesn’t set our future as definite?” he asked.

“The mark does not design your future, you do. The mark links the two of you together as a biological and sociological imperative. How that comes to being is completely within your control.”

He’d asked Tony what he’d seen. Tony smiled and confessed he saw Steve as a soldier, as every dream he could possibly have ever had. He explained how Steve had been healthy, and strong, stronger than anyone. Muscles and built. 

It came crashing in then, the absolute fear of what might be, what could happen to Tony. Linked and bonded to Steve, Tony’s life would be endangered. Steve couldn’t allow that to happen. He would just as soon sacrifice his own life than to allow Tony to be at risk. He has no other choice, no other hope. There is only one way to save Tony. Break the link, sever all ties, renounce the soul mark and shut Tony out of his life, forever. 

He hadn’t been able to do it while still in Boston, but it gave him the fortitude and will to remain as remote as possible with his feeling and desires. Though it continued to be torturous to be around Tony, Steve played ill for the rest of the week in Boston and Tony was considerate, and caring but they never came close again to bonding, not like that one night. He wrapped up every emotion and hope and concealed them. He needed to shut everything down and forget it.

When he returned from Boston, Bucky quizzed him endlessly on his vacation. He’d shrugged it off, but Bucky persisted until Steve finally broke down and told him he didn’t think it would work out. That he needed to find a way to break the link. Bucky went ballistic, thinking that Tony had tried something that made Steve uncomfortable. He accused Tony of hurting Steve and very nearly decided to go after him. Steve held him back and told him it had nothing to do with that and everything to do with Steve’s health.

He exaggerated (not so much) his heart condition and told Bucky that it wasn’t fair to Tony, but Bucky wasn’t to tell Tony anything at all. He knew it was a tangled web he wove, but no one, not Bucky, not Mrs. Odinson with her cynical eye, or especially Tony could know the real reason. If Tony stayed bonded to Steve, he’d die for no other reason but to give Steve the chance to be a hero, a soldier. Steve would have none of that.

He’d give up everything to save Tony.

He readies himself and knocks on the door to the garage. He can hear the pounding beat of one of Tony’s favorite bands. He’s not sure which; he really cannot tell them apart, they all sound like they’re screaming to him. He really likes classical crooners, but Tony just calls him an old man when he says it so he keeps it to himself. Instead of waiting for Tony to hear him, he twists the knob and opens the door a crack. 

Tony’s underneath one of the cars and the music deafens every other sound. Steve walks over to the iPod nestled in the sound system cradle and dials down the volume. 

“Hey!” Tony protests as he slides out from under the carriage of the car. When he spots Steve, he smiles and sits up on the wheeled board. “Steve! How’re you? Any better?”

Steve cannot stand his smile; because it is everything he desires and wants. Something tight fists in his chest, and it feels a little like having an asthma attack. He clears his throat and says, “Yeah, better, I think.” How is he supposed to do this? He doesn’t understand why he has the soul mark only to break it off. But he dreams of that image, of Tony dying in a desert landscape, of Tony wounded and alone. It is entirely his fault, he knows it.

“That’s great,” Tony says and jumps off the board. “I still feel like shit that it happened. We only ended up with three really good days, and it was all my fault.”

“Your fault?”

“If I hadn’t been such a dick when we were driving up to Boston you wouldn’t have spent all that time out in the rain,” he says. “Christ, we’re lucky you didn’t get pneumonia.” Tony throws down the wrench and crosses over to greet Steve. He leans in for a hug and Steve permits it, but he’s stiff and doesn’t return it. “Steve?”

“I need to talk to you,” Steve says, his courage rapidly drying up.

Tony eyes him as if he’s studying an engine. He steps away and walks over to the small fridge in the garage and pulls out a soda. “You want?”

Steve shakes his head, though his mouth is parched and feels like sand grains coat his tongue. 

Tony settles on a stool and points to another one. His shoulders slump like he knows Steve has bad news, like he’s already read his mind. Can he? Can he feel it through their link? Hesitating, Steve trudges to the stool and hops up on it. It is a little high for his liking and makes him feel about six years old with his feet dangling off the ground. 

Tony downs some of his soda and says, “What’s up?”

“I think we-,” Steve says and rubs at his mark. “I think we need to rethink things.”

“Is this about your health? Did you go to the doctor?” Tony says. “’Cause Thor told me his mom was concerned about it. What’s going on, Steve? How sick are you? You know I’m rich, right? Of course, you do. But we can do something about this, my dad will have to. I’ll get my mom-.”

“Tony, it has nothing to do with my health.” Steve says and bows his head. Why does this have to be so hard?”

“Okay, then, what is it? I can tell you’re upset. I don’t need any magical imperative to know that.” Tony peers down and catches Steve’s gaze. “Did something happen at the house? Did that freak Loki do something to you?”

“No, Loki’s fine,” Steve says and waves Tony off. He looks away then back at Tony. “I think we need to cool it.”

“Cool it? Who says stuff like that? What the hell are you talking about?” Tony says as he gulps his soda. 

“I don’t want to do this,” Steve says.

“Well, that’s evident because you’re not doing whatever the hell it is very well. What is going on?” Tony says 

Steve frowns and his frustration with Tony gives him borrowed courage. “Okay, I want to break up with you.”

“What?”

“Yeah, I think we should break up,” Steve says and now that it’s out there it feels like a brand on his soul, like someone just skewered him from the inside. He can see Tony grimace and grab at his chest like he experiences it, too.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Tony says and puts the soda down. He still hasn’t taken his other hand away from his chest.

“I don’t want to date you.”

“Oh, so we don’t date, but we’re soulmates. I thought you wanted to date, I thought you were okay with that,” Tony says and the pain eases a degree.

Steve knows the pain only fades because Tony misinterprets Steve’s intention. For one fleeting moment, he thinks he might just leave it there, maybe slowly breaking things up and apart would be good, but he knows that isn’t fair and he has to be fair for Tony’s sake.

“No, I want to break up with you. I don’t want the mark, I don’t want the bond,” Steve states and forces his voice not to shake.

“What?” Tony furrows his brows and squints his eyes at Steve. “Did Howard put you up to this?”

“Howard? God, no, not Howard,” Steve says and feels a little off balance with that thrown up at him. “No, your father had nothing to do with it.”

“So, what the hell is this all about?” Tony snaps. He launches himself off the chair and practically growls at Steve. His hand is back to his chest again, and Steve knows why, feels why. “Why are you doing this? You’ve been all gun hoe from the very beginning.”

“I just don-.”

“Your health, right?” Tony falls back on that again. “You don’t want to saddle me with your health problems. Shit, I already told you we can deal with them. I don’t want you to worry about anything, sweet-.”

“No, Tony, I don’t want you,” Steve retorts. Off the stool and standing toe to toe with Tony, Steve lets the fear for Tony turn into rage and indignation that every decision in his life has to funnel down to his damned ill health. “It’s you, Tony. I don’t want you.”

“You don-.” Tony stops and looks to the side as if to hide his expression. 

“Yeah, we’re through.” Steve tries to dig it deeper. “You’re all flash and arrogance. A couple of fancy cars, tons of money, take that away and what are you?”

Tony meets his gaze and Steve sees the wetness in his eyes, the hurt. He wants to take it back, he wants the pain that he feels in his heart and his soul to go away, but the image of Tony dying flashes in his head and he cannot deal with it. He has to stay the course. 

Tony doesn’t have an answer, he just stands there and he suddenly looks small and weak to Steve, much smaller than Steve. Tony presses his lips together and nods his head rapidly. “One of the many, right,” he finally forces out. “One of the crowd that only thinks of me as the Stark brat, the rich brat. I always knew you thought those things about me, but I thought we got over them.”

Steve tears his gaze away; he has to remain stoic to the pain. “How can I Tony, when it’s ingrained, it’s who you are. You don’t give a damn about anyone else. You’d never lie down on the wire to let the next guy crawl over you.”

“No, I think I’d just cut the damned wire,” Tony replies. His hurt throbs through the link but, at the same time, Steve can feel the burn of it as it scorches away at their binding that is not yet the bond. 

Steve shakes his head and says, “Yeah, and that’s the difference between the two of us-.”

“Because I don’t want to be a damned martyr?”

“Because I understand the difference between sacrifice and selfishness,” Steve spits back.

“You little shit-.” 

“Yeah, that’s good let’s fall back on calling names,” Steve says.

“Fine, you don’t want to call names,” Tony says. “Then get the fuck out of my house. Get out of my house and never come back.”

“Fine.” Steve whips around and races out of the garage door through the kitchen and into the main vestibule. He passes the butler on the way out, but doesn’t say a word. 

He gets to the subway stop and gets through the turnstiles before the pain becomes unbearable, before he doubles over and clutches his chest. He pulls his hand away from his chest to stare at the mark. In the center, directly in the middle of the triangle a welt that looks similar to a second degree burn sears in his open palm. It pulses through his nerves. His skin feels like it is on fire and his nerves scream against the pain. He kneels at the subway stop away from the people milling around and rocks back and forth. One or two people glance at him, but they quickly avert their eyes. 

He cannot believe the pain, the ache. His skin peals away on his palm and he cries out as it flays and burns and singes. This isn’t what he wants, this isn’t what he prayed for when he went to Mass and hoped for guidance. His hand trembles and he wishes it would stop; he only wants to run back to Tony and tell him it is all a mistake. He fights and holds back the tears. He stays in the corner so that no one will bother him, so that he can allow the hurt and pain to roll over him like a truck alone, to batter him.

Once the subway comes, he staggers to his feet nearly blind from the pain in his hand and throbbing in his chest. He sags into a seat on the corner and closes his eyes. It doesn’t help, the pain is too much. It is emanating from inside. He’s burning and charred inside. He had no idea it would hurt so damned much. He had no idea he would taste blood and the metal of it would roil in his stomach until he wanted to vomit. He had no idea how strong their link had been.

He dozes on and off through the ride. He has to change trains and takes a bus the rest of the way. The pain fuzzes out of the world into a bleary mass of confusion. When he finally opens the door to the group home, he’s spent and ill. He curls up on his bed and doesn’t wake up until the next day. 

Bucky tries to get him to talk about it, but he refuses. He showers the next day and looks down as the water cleanses his hand. The emblem is scarred now, and it no longer looks exactly the same. For some reason he sees red and gold highlighted in it, but he thinks that is just because of the burn mutilating it. He figures it will completely blacken over time and their link will disappear. He can still feel the frayed connection to Tony, can experience how it burns in his chest, and pulsates with a piercing pain. He ignores it. It will go away. He’s sure. 

He knows he’s done the right thing. He knows he saved Tony. As he towels off and gets dress he takes some consolation for this, because it means the world to him. He confesses to no one, but it is obvious when Tony stops coming around, when Steve doesn’t call or talk to Tony anymore.

Mrs. Odinson tilts her head one Sunday afternoon and says to him, “My time here is done. I will miss you, Steve Rogers.”

He has no idea what she’s talking about until he finds out the next day that the group home is closing and Mrs. Odinson and her boys are going back home. He doesn’t know where home is, and never has a chance to ask. He immediately applies for his emancipation and Bucky helps him. School and the paper work involved with trying to get declared an independent takes his mind off Tony.

As time wears on, he occasionally looks at his mark and notes how it never blemishes to a true black. It never goes away completely though it is marred. He takes some small comfort in that fact even though he knows he will never see Tony again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I know. Hopefully you will continue to have interest in this story. I understand that this is a horrible place to leave off and my intention was to revise this chapter and change it so that it would be longer. Unfortunately, time is not permitting that. 
> 
> I will not be able to update very frequently. I am busy working on two big bangs and have to concentrate on those. I do hope to update again in the next two weeks. I am excited about that update because big things will happen, but it will be a longer chapter so it will take some time. I apologize and hope you enjoyed this chapter.
> 
> Also, this was written very quickly so that I could post something this week as promised. If there are minor corrections I always appreciate it!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seven years later - what happens to a soul divided into two separate people?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to jump a head because no matter how hard I tried to write this it didn't work. It needed to move forward in time.

-Seven Years Later-  
He tries not to think about his teenaged years. Sometimes, when he thinks back on them it all seems like some drug induced dream. Maybe, he was on too many drugs back then, how else is he supposed to explain the strange house of Asgard with the brothers Thor and Loki which disappeared? It didn’t quite disappear but Mrs. Odinson and her boys just up and left the state, possibly the country. He’ll never know, she was always so cryptic about it. Still there were the other things in his life – strange and desperate he thinks now. How else is he supposed to explain the brand on his hand that's scarred with a black smudge through it, and the hatred that wells up in his chest when he reaches out to the link, the binding that never became the bond? He can still feel Tony, still wishes for him, but knows there’s nothing left of them – not with such terrible emotions hosted by his mate. So, he thinks maybe it was all a drug induced dream. He knows it is a coward's way out of remembering his past, but he'd rather think it was some horrible dream than to face up to the fact that his life has been anything but normal.

It’s been seven years and he’s only seen Tony once in the intervening space of time. He tries not to think of it. How he lost so much, how he did it to save Tony. He still believes he did the right thing, he knows he did it. To save Tony, he had to give him up. Yet, seven years or seven hundred years will never be enough to help him forget the mark on his hand, the destiny and the connection he gave up. 

Tony had been everything to him, since he was fifteen. He tries to convince himself he did the right thing, he knows he did the right thing. But he also knows who Tony turned into after they parted. Steve knows that while he continues to pursue his dream, Tony turned to alcohol and meaningless sex. Everyone knows the playboy, everyone knows how very much a popular guy Tony is in the media. The media seemed to have forgotten about his scarred mark, and only focuses on his latest and greatest sexual conquest, his latest drunken exploits. Bucky had once seen him staring at the television with its latest celebrity reports centered on Tony Stark. He only shook his head and remarked how Steve was lucky to get rid of that loser before they’d bonded permanently. 

Now, the helicopter he's on banks right and the entire team sways under it. Bucky hands him his night goggles, they are going in under cover of the moonless night, to clean out some terrorists in the Pakistani mountains and retrieve important information on a new cell – the Hydra cell. It will be a covert operation because they are crossing a border they are not supposed to be breaking, but are being ordered to do it. He frowns as the black sky sweeps by, how the hell did he end up with a crew called the Howling Commandoes and a code name of Captain America?

The answer to that makes him smile, but it still hurts, down deep inside when he thinks of everything, everyone he's lost. Getting his dream of serving his country became his one true focus after he walked away from his destiny, his fate, his soul mate. When he found a way to get into the army it surprised even him. Doctor Erskine had referred him to a new program. He ended up consented into a program which would change him and his life in every way possible. He'd almost lost the opportunity when Howard Stark found out he'd been admitted into the top secret Army program.

He still recalls sitting in the waiting room listening to Howard rant about his participation. 

"He's one of those freaks, those soulers," Howard had screamed.

Steve had heard it through the office door. Erskine's answer had been muffled, and quiet, so that Steve had missed it.

"He's nothing but an orphan; he shouldn’t be in the program at all. He's got no one; he just wants to find a way to suck off the system. I'm telling you, that kid is no good."

Erskine's answer had been lost again to his soft spoken demeanor, but then the door swung open and Steve nearly jumped out of his seat in the waiting room. Erskine looked him up and down, smiled, and adjusted his glasses.

"You want to join the army?"

"Yes, sir." Steve stood up and straightened his thin shoulders, knowing he looked ridiculous in his hope.

"You want to go and kill the bad guys, the terrorists."

Steve frowned and said, "I don't understand."

"Do you want to kill terrorists?"

"Is this a test?"

Erskine half smiled at him with a knowing look in his eyes. "Yes."

Steve considered the man, the question, and his dreams, as well as his losses. "I don't want to kill anyone. I don't like bullies. I don't care where they're from."

It had been the right answer, because he became the clear choice and both Erskine and Phillips supported him although Stark almost pulled out of the project. It took congressmen and probably promises of lucrative government contracts to get Stark to commit to the project. Steve nearly walked out when he suspected that but it had been Erskine who stopped him.

With a hand on Steve's shoulder, he'd said, "Do not let the narrow minded and prejudice lead the way. We need someone like you in this project. Not a perfect soldier, but always a good man."

He'd stayed and Project Rebirth had been a success - a one-time success because someone sabotaged the equipment, a computer virus eating all the data including the back up of Erskine's files. They killed Erskine in the process. It all went to hell after that. Stark ended up dead in a car accident with his wife - Steve never did find out if it had been due to drunken driving or something more nefarious.

Steve had ventured to the funeral, knowing full well he would meet Tony though, perhaps because he would meet Tony there. It had been a disaster as well. Tony had been drunk and displayed his hatred for Steve in front of a crowd of a hundred and fifty mourners. 

Steve had gone to show his respects, kneeling at the closed coffins and whispering a prayer before he turned to Tony to express his condolences.

"What the fuck are you doing here," Tony had said even before Steve had climbed to his feet.

"I wanted to express my-."

"What your sympathy?" Tony looked him up and down, surveying his new body, his new height. "Your freaked up steroidal shit ass sympathy?"

"Tony, I know how it is. I lost-."

"You lost your respect man, you lost everything. You fucking went to bed with the devil to do this to yourself, didn't you?"

At that point, Steve had glanced down at his new body, how he towered over Tony, his thick heavy muscles against Tony's leaner muscular body. "I wanted to serve my country, do my part."

"You could have done anything, you could have been anything. But you sold yourself to become just a freaked out experiment. Everything special about you came out of a bottle." He sneered at Steve, then and shoved at him. Steve hadn't been ready for the physicality of Tony's reaction to him. He staggered backward, nearly falling into a pew with other mourners. "Ha, did you a lot of good, didn't it. Can't even stand on your own two feet."

"You want to go a few rounds," Steve had come back. He hated it when he thought of it now. He'd reacted badly, hadn't been there for Tony when he'd lost both of his parents. It embarrassed and shamed Steve. He excused himself and left. Even that made him feel awful, to abandon Tony in his time of need. 

"Hey, clear your head," Bucky says to him now, dragging him away from the shadows of his memories to the dim light before dawn. "We're dropping in soon, Cap."

"Yeah, yeah," Steve says and straps on his helmet. They go through their last equipment check, each verifying the buckles and clips to ensure the backpacks are attached and secure. It will be a fast swoop in and then out again. He grabs his gloves and yanks them on, ignoring the blackened dart through the center of his palm. Everyone on his squad knows about it, his rejected status as a souler. The soul bond is misunderstood in society and shunned, but to be a person who ignored the brand, the bindings, is even worse. He might as well be an untouchable now; no one would even think to have him. He grimaces; his life isn't about that now, it is about service and duty and giving of himself to his nation and the cause of freedom and liberty for those weaker than him.

The pilot signals them as they approach the main hideaway of the terrorists. It is a way station between the Pakistani border and the Afghani one where goods, weapons, and terrorists are exchanged and trained. They have one objective to get in, get the information and get out. The database stored in the desolate place will help clean up and remove the threat from a dozen different places the world over. It is kept in this isolated place because it is not hooked up and networked. It is here that the brain trust of the terrorists' organization resides. 

"In and out, Commandoes, in and out!" Steve yells as he grabs hold of the rope and jumps out of the copter. 

A flash to his right tells him they’ve been detected, but they are ready for that as Dum Dum, who’s stayed behind in the copter, lies down a line of suppressing fire. By the time they drop the twenty feet to the plateau the dawn fires across the sky not with the rays of the rising sun but with artillery fire cracking over their heads as they scramble to the rocky side of the cliff. Downward is the point of their journey and they find the carved steps in the side of the mountain toward what can only be termed a type of weir in the rock. Inside leads to the caves of the terrorists and their storage of reams of data on their network. 

As they descend the natural and man-made steps in the side of the mountain, they encounter a series of assailants. Steve heads up the pack and slams his shield into the neck of the first one, tossing him over the side while the second one aims for his head. Bucky still atop the cliff hits the target and the terrorist drops to join the first. After that, the attackers are more leery of the oncoming soldiers. Steve spins and hits as Gabe fires round after round. It’s only the three of them; they can’t afford to bring in a big crew since they have to get in and out so quickly. 

Steve leans over the side and sees the thatched roof of a shed, he gestures over to it and they jump as one into the tiny structure. Their attackers climbing up the steps have to halt and turn around while Steve and his team crawl to their feet, dust off the thatched grass and mud, and rush toward the inner caves of the base. 

There are three guards awaiting them plus the two that had to backtrack down the slope of the mountain. Surrounded, Steve yells, “Down.”

Both Bucky and Gabe drop and Steve flings the shield, hitting three as it ricochets and he spins to kick and punch the two others. Bucky joins the fray and Steve hears the sickening crunch of bone against bone. Steve battles onward into the mouth of the cave. They come in a flurry; gun fire breaks the air and bullets spray and splatter. At one point, Steve hunkers down and yanks his team mates with him when a grenade flashes and explodes. A rain of stone and pebbles hit them and they race toward their destination, leaving bodies and cries in their wake. 

Gabe knows where to go, though they all have the map in their heads. Gabe’s the point man, the one who is supposed to lock down the information, retrieve it, and bring it back. Bucky and Steve are only there as the muscle. 

“Over here, over here,” Gabe calls as he hunches low in the narrow tunnel. Another round of gun fire scatters them, splitting them up. Gabe, thankfully, gets ahead of them toward their destination, but Steve and Bucky are cut off. 

Steve smashes his shield against the barrel of an automatic assault rifle, and then arcs his fist into the jaw of its owner. He feels the mandible give and crack under his fist but doesn’t stop to glorify it or consider it as another man slams into his ribs just as he turns around. He’s able to hit him firmly in the neck to have him crumple in the dirt. There’s a volley of gun fire in the other passageway and he knows Bucky needs his help. Running in that direction, he has to stop twice to clear the way. 

He skids to a stop to see Bucky separated from him by an open space which he can’t dare to cross. Bucky has no ammuno as he gives Steve the signal that he’s out. Steve nods, steps into the dead man’s space, tosses his gun, and pitches the shield at their assailants. It hits the target with precision.

“One of these days, you’re going to tell me how you do that,” Bucky jokes and they rush to join Gabe.

As they descend into the darkest part of the caves, Gabe dashes back to them and his face looks like ash.

“What?” Steve says.

“It’s a set-up; there’s nothing here,” Gabe says and grabs a fist full of Steve’s uniform.

“What? How do you know?”

“The computers, the data all dummies, there’s nothing here. They did this to draw you out, Steve,” Gabe says in a jumble of words. “This cell, the Hydra cell wants you dead.”

“Come on, come on,” Bucky says and sprints back the way they came. Steve only considers the dark tunnel once, before he’s trailing behind both Gabe and Bucky. He follows them through the cave, hearing the stamping of boots as the terrorists converge on their position. 

The next five minutes merge in a horror of fire and struggle and sweat. As he bashes with his shield against the barrage of fists his mind blanks out and he feels something scorch through his palm – his soul mate brand. It shocks him so much it robs his breath and he stumbles in the middle of the fight. He blinks several times trying to get his bearings, but the pain grows and sears like lava flows through his veins. He tries to ignore it, tries to concentrate at the fight at hand, but at the same time, he sees another image superimposed over his reality. He can see a Humvee. He sees soldiers and hears laughter and then the world – that strange echoed world explodes and bursts into flames. 

He sees a rocket in that shadowed world even as he attempts to free himself from the hands grappling for purchase trying to capture him. The rocket plainly says Stark Industries and then the world goes blank again and he feels it spread over his chest. Even as he fights in his reality, he looks down – there’s nothing on his chest, nothing at all. But he feels the spread and warmth of blood. Someone’s hit, someone’s dying. 

He knows who.

He cringes as one of the terrorists smack him in the head and the world spins on its axis. Bucky screams at him, “Come on, go, go, go.”

The way is clear and he stumbles up, hardly seeing the reality around him. He forces the images of that other life, of Tony’s life away and focuses only on the present. Bucky’s next to him. They’re climbing up the cliff face; blasts hit at their heels and shards of rock and mortar spray and pelt them. 

“Dum Dum, come in Dum Dum. Captain America ready for pick up and salute,” Gabe cries over the comm device. 

They’re half way up the cliff face when it happens the steps explode and he tumbles backward, Bucky falling on top of him. The space is too small and they teeter. Even as Steve tries to catch him, another burst of firepower throws them off balance and Bucky plunges off the side. He catches a thin ledge. Steve bends down to grab Bucky but it is too late. He slips and plummets down into the murky light of morning. 

“Bucky!”

“Cap, it’s too late,” Gabe screams as the copter appears overhead. The appearance of the copter turns the attention of their attackers to their ride. It allows them enough time to scurry up the stone steps, catch the lines, and hang on as the copter takes off and away.

Steve stares down into the mountains, knowing he’s lost everyone important to him today.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope this works for you. I will be updating periodically. I apologize for the slowness. It probably won't get any better. I will be having surgery and treatments for a serious medical condition soon and I am not sure what kind of head space I will be in to write everyday. I do plan on continuing this story as much as I am able. I thank you for your patience.


	10. Chapter 10

The shelter crumbles and smells of burnt out woods and melted plastic. It's been that way for weeks since a bomb broke through the green zone and killed three soldiers and fifteen of the Afghani workers who were contracted to the military. It's been abandoned ever since, designated to be torn down, removed from existence so no one will ever know it was here.

Steve looks around it, sees the collapsed roof, the shattered windows. This was a place of employment and a place of relaxation for the Afghanis and the soldiers. It was a place to forget the hell outside the gates. Now it just reminds and echoes what goes on outside, what there is and what there isn't.

He closes his eyes as he slumps over the table. It is one of the only tables still in one piece. There are chairs scattered around, and he got one. He brought his own alcohol but it doesn't matter because his new body burns through it too fast for it to make a difference, for it to numb any of the pain.

He picks up the glass and tastes the liquid. As he does he spots the mark on his hand through the amber of the whiskey. Placing the glass down, he opens his hand to study the brand. It pulsates with a dull pain. He's experienced the pain and sorrow from Tony through the link. He knows that Tony has probably felt some of his pain and depression as well. He's not sure why the link just won't tear apart entirely, why it won't burn out. He wants it to, he needs it to. It isn't that he doesn't still dream of Tony, because he does, every damned day. Yet, he split with Tony to save him and, now, as the pulse aches in his hand he wonders if it was the correct thing to do. 

He heard the news as soon as he came back to base. He shakes his head and downs more of the alcohol. He wishes he could get drunk. He lost Bucky, and now Tony is gone. It is all over the news, Tony has been abducted and is being held hostage. No one will negotiate and no one will rescue him. Steve blinks away the tears as he squeezes his hand closed. 

He knows he's about to do something he shouldn't, he knows he'll be tossed from the army for disobeying orders among other grievances, but he cannot let terrorists hold Tony. He can't, even though he denied Tony - he realizes now he played right into fate or whatever it is. He recalls that the professor they’d once inquired with about soul bonds and the bio-imperative had told them that they decided their own destiny, that fate had nothing to do with it. He ponders at that and how it could possibly be right.

He heard the news two days after Bucky died. Even with the craziness of inter-connectivity these days it does still take some time for news to travel. Finally, someone found him in the mess and offered him a newspaper to show him that Tony had been kidnapped, possibly dead by terrorists.

It had been Dum Dum who broke the news. He still wonders how Dugan drew the short straw or if he’d volunteered for the mission to tell Steve the news. The numbness of losing Bucky overshadowed his reaction, or it didn’t. He ended up losing his temper, raging and breaking things in the mess. Everyone stared at him like he’s just turned into an alien or something. In the end they called Phillips and the doctors to come and sit with him, talk with him. He quieted but they put him on stand down.

He’d asked the Colonel to let him go after Tony. “Just let me go.”

“I can’t do that, son, you’re mentally compromised right now. You’re too close to the target.”

“Colonel Phillips, he’s my soul mate, you know that?” Steve had said and his voice caught at the word mate. They had been mates, but Steve shredded their lives together, and left them. He thinks on Tony’s accusations, maybe he did do it so that he could have something better. But what would ever be better than Tony?

“Yes, I do know that, son, and you’re too close to the situation.”

“We haven’t spoken in years, sir. But I can still feel him; I could lead you to him.”

“No, the answer is no,” Phillips said and shut Steve down. As an afterthought, Phillips added, “You just lost your best friend, take some time to grieve, Captain, take some time to grieve.”

What is he supposed to do, but sit in the dark, burnt out remains of life and look at the scarred mark on his hand and figure out what’s next. He could go after Tony, he will go after Tony, he knows he will. He just has to find a good way to do it. He’s not an irrational man, though sometimes hot headed, he always has a plan. He’ll get some information, find out the last known location of the terrorists and he’ll drop in on them by himself if he has to.

He reaches for the bottle again but his hand burns and he hisses. Clenching it to his chest, Steve grimaces and closes his eyes. He feels the burn of Tony, the half awareness, the pain. As he tries to reach through the link to find any indication of where Tony might be, a clatter stops him and he looks to find Peggy Carter stepping over the fallen wreckage of the building.

He peers over his shoulder to see her, wipes away the memories of tears and picks up the bottle again as she approaches. “Doctor Erskine said that the serum wouldn’t just affect my muscles but would affect my cells, create a protective system of regeneration and healing. Means I can’t get drunk, did you know that?”

She turns for a moment to right a chair and sits down. “Your metabolism burns four times faster than the average person, he thought it could be one of the side effects.”

Peggy had been there when he’d been accepted into the program. She’d been supportive, helpful, and even friendly to him. He doesn’t have a lot of friends outside the Commandoes. Not many people, even in this day and age, accept the soul mate mark on his hand; even less people accept him because he rejected his destiny. It is an odd paradox, but it is the way the masses work, irrational and insane.

“It wasn’t your fault,” she whispers as she watches him.

“You read the report?”

“Yes,” she replies.

“Then you know that’s not true.”

“You did everything you could,” she says. When he doesn’t reply Peggy asks, “Did you believe in your friend, did you respect him?”

When he finally looks at her she says, “Then stop blaming yourself.”

She’s about to say something else, but as she shifts forward his palm flares with a brilliant sharp cutting pain and he hunches over and hisses. He balls up his hand into a fist and clutches it to his chest. 

“Steve? Steve?” Peggy says and she’s on her feet. 

The pain is so blinding he’s blinking back the tears but it is nothing in comparison to the wrecking ball that blasts through his chest. He topples forward, hits his face on the edge of the table, and tumbles to his knees. His chest splatters open, feels like someone cracked his sternum and dug into his chest wall. He groans against the pain and closes his eyes. It doesn’t help because he sees it; he sees what’s happening to Tony.

“Oh God, Tony,” he says and crumples further in on himself.

He rocks forward cradling his fist as Peggy stands over him, asking him what’s wrong. She knows about the brand on his hand, she knows about his lost soul mate. 

“Tony,” he murmurs but can’t raise his voice higher than a mere whisper, the pain is so piercing and barbed. 

“Medic,” Peggy yells but the world is fogging out, and Steve cannot stay.

Grabbing for Peggy’s hand he says, “Don’t let them, don’t let them.”

“What Steve? What?” Her eyes are a frightened panic and he knows he’s speaking gibberish, but he doesn’t know what else to do, how else to handle it.

Even as he fights to be free of the link, to rise above it, it seizes him and hauls him downward into the spears of pain blossoming over and through his chest. When he closes his eyes he can see, feel, know everything that’s happening to Tony. He flashes his eyes open as he falls to the charred out floor boards. “They’re digging in his chest – God – no.” He rolls over to his side and closes up as if that will protect Tony. 

There are hands on him then but he cannot respond as too many sensations run through him at the same time. He feels Tony swaying and fighting for consciousness, his pain throbbing through their link like a beacon. He wants to use it but the hands on him, the medics somehow hold him down. He sees the ceiling, the sky everything rush by and it is all a jumble. He hears voices calling to him and Peggy telling him to hold on.

It is only when Tony succumbs to unconsciousness that Steve does as well. Nothing they do, nothing they try sedates him until the moment Tony falters and surrenders. Steve screams out, because he thinks Tony is dying, he can’t allow it to happen but he’s tied down to the gurney as he struggles and fights to get free.

Yet, when Tony dissipates, Steve drifts with him. He knows he should unweave their linkage, thin it so that he can find a way to use the link to find Tony, but right now he has to know that Tony is going to live. He stays like that in a state of pain and wavering consciousness for days. Even when he shifts toward a brighter day, even when consciousness is not elusive – he’s battered by the torture and beatings. He cannot hope to find Tony, if they keep tormenting him. 

He tries to signal this through the link. He tries to calm Tony, to offer some solace. But they never consummated the binding and so he cannot directly offer anything to Tony. He feels weak and powerless as he lies in the hospital bed. He feels like he’s become that weakling again from his youth. 

The medical staff try to relieve his pain; they even consider clinical trials to sever the link since he is so incapacitated. They have unreliable ways to do it, ones that are not tried and true. He shakes his head at anything they offer until they release him to his quarters with orders not to leave the premises. 

He tries to convince Peggy to speak for him. “Tell Phillips, tell him I could help. I could find Tony.” He’s still so weak, but he knows Tony has grown in strength. He feels as if he’s feeding Tony his own strength so he can survive. He would do it, if it were possible. He would give Tony everything he had to offer.

They are sitting in the mess again. He’s only picked at his food. Since this whole thing began, he’s lost ten pounds and can’t focus well. 

She shakes her head. “Steve, I can’t. You’re in no shape to be traipsing around the mountains of Afghanistan looking for Tony Stark. You do understand that, don’t you?”

“Don’t treat me like an idiot, Peggy.”

“I’m not, but I’m concerned. You’re not eating correctly, everyone knows you can’t sleep. When was the last time you did sleep?” Her focus pierces through him.

“I-I can’t. I can feel him constantly-.”

“And that is the exact reason why you do not belong on any rescue mission planned,” she says.

He slumps back in his chair. “He’s getting better.”

“What?”

“I said, he’s getting better, stronger by the day. They must have someone with him to tend his wounds or something,” Steve says as he reaches out to that nebulous link to touch upon the memories of Tony’s pain, his healing, and his imprisonment. “He’s getting better.”

“That’s a good thing, right?” Her eyes are luminous.

“Yes, but for how long? How long can he hold out? They’re keeping him for a reason, not because they like a punching bag, but for a reason. We all know these terrorist organizations are interested in one thing and one thing only. The biggest gun. Tony is the best in the weapons business-.” He stops because he hates that everything Tony dreamed of disappeared because of his actions. “He’s a prize for them.”

“And we will get him back, but you – you’re a liability,” Peggy says. She stands and places her hand on his shoulder. “Let everyone do their job, Steve. You don’t always have to be the hero.”

He listens to her – he does, until he can’t any longer. The days become weeks and the weeks become months. There are days he’s stronger, more able, but then the terrorists come for Tony again and beat him. It is then Tony needs him the most. Steve isn’t sure if it is subconsciously or not, but Tony automatically reaches through the link and consumes what Steve has to offer. Steve allows it, even though it imperils his ability to directly save Tony. It weakens him.

His attention and abilities are hampered by the pain Tony suffers, by the abuse. He starts to argue with the Colonel, he begins to put together his small group of Commandoes, soliciting their support to go after Tony. He has some ideas about where Tony might be, but it isn’t sure. So he has Dugan looking into it and puts feelers out to all of his contacts in the services.

He thinks he’s shouting alone in the dark in the middle of a deserted field. 

Finally, he’s answered, someone responds.

Colonel Rhodes – Tony’s old pal and friend. Rhodey actually appears at the base one day and demands to speak with Steve.

When he’s ushered into HQ, and into Colonel Phillips’ office, he can feels something brewing – not only in his reality but through the link to Tony as well.

Rhodes is in the office, waiting. His face is pinched and he’s anxious. “Captain?” He offers his hand and, as Steve reaches to accept it, Rhodes grabs his hand and twists his palm open. He stares at the soul mark, the scarred brand. “Can you still feel him? You got an idea about him?”

“Yeah, pretty much,” Steve says and yanks his hand away. He’s still unsure about revealing his mark, especially since the blackened smudge looks like a charred burn mark. He’s ashamed of himself for causing it.

“We need him,” Rhodes says and turns to the Colonel. “We need him now.”

“You’re not getting him; he’s not been released from medical.”

“We have an operation going down in the next twelve hours, I need him because we can’t pinpoint where Stark is without him,” Rhodes says.

Colonel Phillips spins on his heel and looks at Steve, the commanding pissed off look sears right through him. “Can you do that? Like some kind of mouse hunting for cheese or something in a maze?”

Steve raises his brows in surprise at the analogy, but he will do anything to get to Tony. “Yeah, I can do it.” He doesn’t smile, because smiling will give away his untruth. It really isn’t a lie; he just has no idea if the soul mate mark is akin to being a bloodhound on a scent. 

Phillips sighs. “Go, get out of here.” 

As they start to leave Phillips calls out, “If you get the golden boy killed don’t come crying to me, Rhodes. I don’t want to hear it.”

Rhodes shares a look with Steve, who keeps his face tooled and calm. 

“Understood, sir, understood.”

*oOo*  
Yinsen dies.

Yinsen gives up his life for him and, in Tony's rage following his death; he cannot feel anything but the hell of his existence. Over the last three months, there is nothing more than this - nothing more than the one decent person in the whole of the universe lying dead at his feet, a self-sacrifice for him. And he cannot understand why, why would he do it, why would he offer himself up for Tony.

What does it mean?

He screams and allows the rage and horror of his experiences to overcome him. It feels like every moment, every second of his life strapped into this place, imprisoned in this cave accumulates into his fury and anger. He becomes it, and he has no other definition. He feels nothing else but the need to seek revenge, the pain of loss, and the desolation of despair. Through the barrage of bullets and mortar fire, Tony launches from the cave in his parody of the Tin Man from the Wizard of Oz. His heart in his throat, he soars over the rugged mountains into the dunes of sand. He doesn't care if it means instant death or slow and painful death, all he cares about is that he will be free of the dark cave, free of the assaults, and the hell, free of his fears.

He lands in a jumble of broken metal and melting circuits. Peeling away the last vestiges of his protective shell, he sits there in the soft, hot sand in a daze. He faces the sun, allows its rays to shine down on him as if he bathes in the most luxurious hotel room. He consumes it and lets the tension run from his muscles. He mourns the death of his only friend in this world and wonders how Yinsen ever found him worthy.

Steve never found him worthy.

He squeezes his eyes closed and clamps his fisted hand to his chest. He aches through their link, the weak binding that never became the bond. Out here in the middle of death and ashes, he can admit with no one else around that he yearns for Steve every day, wants him back, and knows that he was supposed to be with Steve. 

When Steve came to his father's funeral, the first moment he saw him he only wanted to collapse in those strong arms, against that expansive chest. Instead, he'd been too drunk to invite him, or welcome him; he only spat curses at him and told him to go. He lets his arm fall from his chest and opens up his hand. The mark has been pulsating lately and he imagines Steve calling out to him through it. Maybe it is just his imagination but it gave him some solace during the night, during the beatings and the hell of the kidnapping. In some distant corner of his mind, he imagines the link helped him survive, fed and nourished him.

Sometimes in the very cold of night he would open up his hand and gaze at the blemished soul mate mark. He would wish for Steve, but Steve rejected him like everyone else. He closes his hand now; he struggles up from the sand, scavenging what he can to make a turban to cover his head. He treks toward what he hopes is civilization. It isn't until he's been walking for some time that he realizes he's picking the direction his mark on his hand pulses in deep angry throbs. It leads him toward something, someone. He tries not to think about whom.

He knows only the sand, the feel of the grit, the heat of each particle, the taste of it like gravel in his mouth, on his tongue, between his teeth. He inhales it and celebrates, because it means he's free. He doesn't give a flying fuck if it means he'll die in this wasteland because their claws aren't in him, he's built the means to leave and he left. He's free because of his brain and the sacrifice of one man. He hopes to hell he'll survive so he can live up to what Yinsen asked of him. He wants to be the man Yinsen must have seen in his dreams.

As he falls into the hot swelter of sands, he looks down at the mark on his hand. It has pulsated and burned hot, hotter than the bleaching sun in the desert. It called to him, begged him as he walked. He could feel the link yawning open and grasping for him. In a slight graze of touch, he would mentally brush against it, like a shoulder bump. It became kind of a game to keep him alert and awake and alive as he moved over the endless dunes. 

Is it right to use his soul bond, his link to someone who so obviously hates him and abandoned him. But it means Tony is still alive, it means something that the link is so open and wide and giving as he moves through the desert landscape. For one fleeting moment, it is as if Steve is searching for him, looking for him, and begging for him to respond. He knows it is only his merciless desperation, his self-flagellation - that he cannot give up on this dream of being with Steve, holding Steve, wanting to be that mate. He knows it is only that and nothing more.

When he hears the blades of the US military helicopters he thinks at first the heat has finally driven him mad and he sinks to his knees after he waves at the mirage. He knows he is finally dying, that this cannot be real. But then Rhodey is kneeling in front of him, joking with him, holding him. He's alive.

Alive.

Breathing.

And his friend is holding him as the helicopters chop the air about them shifting the desert sands. The blades cast long rotating shadows across the sea of dunes and he closes his eyes in Rhodey's embrace and then he realizes other shadows hover over them. He startles and jolts away from Rhodey's arms to see a number of other soldiers surrounding them. His rescue party. One figure from the back knocks the other soldiers away, shoves Rhodey to the side, and grabs Tony so fiercely he cries out. 

"Tony."

He cannot say the name for to say it out loud would mean to make it real and if he makes it real, it would mean he's died. Steve would not be here, Steve does not want him.

Hands cups his face, drag him close and Tony inhales, can smell Steve. He breaks down then, he doesn't want to but, all the hell and the pain and the terror collide until it shatters the flimsy walls he's constructed not only over the past three months, but over the last seven years. 

"I'm here, Tony, I'm here," Steve murmurs in his ear and kisses his cheek. "It's my fault, all my fault. God, this is because of me, Tony."

Tony pulls back to get a look at Steve, to verify what he's hearing is real and solid and with him. Tears stain Steve's face, but he's here in the flesh and blood and is ripping off his glove, reaching for Tony's marked hand, grasping it, and throwing them both into the link.

It explodes in a flurry of colors and heat. It isn't the searing heat of the desert, but a comforting one, a warmth that resides within and is given for solace and peace. Following the warmth is the cool rush - as if Steve could possibly heal him from the pain through the link itself. It encompasses and enfolds him and he falls forward into Steve's waiting arms. He's not sure what is happening physically around him, he feels the jostle of bodies, the frantic cacophony of voices but he doesn't pay them any heed. He listens only to the link as it opens farther and accepts him and Steve.

Steve is there.

Steve is offering him every source of health and healing he has to give. He opens to Tony and offers every fiber of himself to the link, he leaves nothing for himself. This is succor, this is harmony, this is his home. He wants to be angry, and he knows he will be. He wants to hold a grudge, and he knows he will and cruelly. But in this moment, this bare moment of truth, he has no defenses and he accepts all the security and safety Steve has to give. 

Their hands intertwined, they do not separate. Tony doesn't realize what happens, how he goes from kneeling in the sand dunes to laying in the cool comfort of a bed on the US base. He only knows that lying next to him, still hanging onto his hand is Steve. As Tony awakes, he blinks away the confusion, looks around the quiet hospital room, and then back at Steve. The staff pushed two gurneys together and strapped them. How the medical staff was able to work on him as he stayed link to Steve, he has no recollection. He only recalls the soothing vibrations of the link, the soft melody of it, and the welcoming touch of it. He wants to stay there forever with Steve. He looks at Steve, who is still sleeping. Steve.

Not his Steve though.

This is a strange Steve. A different Steve.

But he remembers the words - _"It's my fault, all my fault. God, this is because of me, Tony."_

Their hands are still tangled together and the link never seemed more alive. He can feel Steve sleeping through it, he can almost experience the whispers of his dreams, it is that vital and real. He wonders what a true bond would be like, how strong or disruptive it would be? He wonders if, even now, he would want that with Steve. As he raises his other hand careful of the intravenous line, he threads his fingers through Steve's hair, he knows he yearns for it more than he craves air. Even after everything, he wants Steve.

He shakes his head and knows he shouldn't. It is masochistic, and not healthy for him to fall back into a relationship which nearly destroyed him. All those years - years he cannot really recall because of his drunken stupors, his brilliant fugues, his lost dreams. He hid himself from the world and from everything and everybody because of Steve.

He wanted the bond more than anything, more than he ever admitted to himself. He'd tried to shy away from it, but those long ago moments with Steve in Boston had enlightened him, brought him to a place in his heart he wanted to dwell for the rest of his life. But then Steve had come and tore it all asunder. He still doesn't know, doesn't understand why.

He wants to know, but there's real terror there, in that place of misunderstandings and accusations. He would like to ignore it for the rest of his life and just pretend he's in this moment from now on. But Pepper would give him that look of disapproval and Rhodey would never be pleased. He has to get to the bottom of this, why it happened because if he doesn't, he knows it could happen again.

If he has a chance to keep Steve, he wants to take it, but he has to know he has the chance first, and he has to know why Steve denied him in the first place.

Just as Tony strokes his hand down the line of Steve's cheek, he opens his eyes. There's a slow recognition and then a smile.

"Tony," Steve mumbles. 

"Steve." He tries to keep his voice steady but distant.

Steve looks down at their interlinked hands. "I'm sorry, this is my fault. I never meant-."

"I don't get it, Steve," Tony says. "You leave me, disappear out of my life for years and then you're there for the rescue mission. What did they use you as a hound dog to find me or something?"

Steve lowers his gaze and says, "In a way, yes."

Tony yanks his hand away and sits up. The room does a nice loop around him and he has to cradle his head in his hands. "Christ."

Steve is sitting up next to him with his hand on his back. "Take it easy. You’re dehydrated, and under nourished. Not to mention the thing in your chest." He points to it, but Tony shies away.

"Don't touch it."

"Yeah, we got that last night when you were screaming at everyone to leave it alone."

"Last night?"

"Yeah," Steve says with a nod. He picks some sleep out of his eyes and looks at Tony. His eyes are red and swollen like he hasn't slept well in days, maybe longer.

"So you're just here as the local military working dog?" Tony knows it jabs right into Steve's heart, he can see how it hurts in the pained expression that crosses Steve's face.

"I wanted to find you earlier, but- there were complications," Steve mumbles and goes to slide off the gurney. 

Tony captures his arm. "You don't get off that easy."

Steve doesn't turn around to face him, but doesn't leave the bed either. "No, I suppose I shouldn't."

"Explain it to the genius in the room, soldier boy."

Steve doesn't answer immediately and from the side, Tony can see he's grinding his teeth holding back the anger.

"Okay, fine," Steve says. "In Boston, when we- when we linked palms - I saw everything Tony. I saw this."

"This?"

He turns and his face is red but not with a blush but with the heat of anger. "I saw what was going to happen to you." He gestures to the reactor embedded in Tony's chest. "I saw you get hit, I saw you being tortured. I saw it all."

Tony swallows and tries not to recall his own memories, the visions he had in Boston. He doesn't want to think about it, seeing Steve being stretched and screaming as muscles and sinew and bone transformed. He saw it all too. 

"I wanted to stop it all; I didn't want it to happen. So I cheated, I thought I was smarter. I thought that I knew how to stop it because of what Professor Tilly said -that our destiny wasn't written, that we wrote it. But I don't know anymore, because-."

"Because it happened anyway," Tony whispers and looks down at his marred brand. He doesn't want to hope, he doesn't want to feel that Steve sacrificed their bond to save him, but he knows it is true. That is Steve through and through. He always puts his own wants and needs second. He would, of course, think that severing ties would save Tony. "Only you would fuck it up so royally."

Steve bows his head. He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes and then drops his hands into his lap. "Yeah, completely and utterly. Totally."

"Bet Bucky was happy once you broke up with me," Tony says.

"Bucky's dead."

Tony can't stop the gasp. "Christ, I'm sorry."

"Yeah," Steve says and stands up. "I'll get out of your hair now. I'm glad you're okay." He hasn't looked back at Tony yet. He crosses the room before Tony stops him.

"You're an idiot, you know that, right?" 

Steve glances at Tony and then shakes his head. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure I got that one."

Tony drags the intravenous line over with him as he hops off the bed on wobbly legs. Steve meets him half way and holds him up. 

"No, I'm not talking about then. Well, actually yes I am, but I am also talking about now."

Steve only frowns at him and tries to guide him over to the bed. He doesn't budge.

"I think you need to get back in bed."

"I think you need to admit you still have no clue what the hell you're doing."

"I never said I did," Steve says.

"Well you act like you do, but you don't do you? You're as fucked up as I am. You just hold it all inside and punch people and probably shred punching bags in the gym to get it out, don't you?"

Steve hides his face.

"Christ you do."

"Watch your language."

"You are such a prude."

"I am not, I'm in the army."

"Like that makes a difference with you," Tony says. "You still don't get it."

Steve opens his hands and says, "You win Tony, I don't, because I have no idea what the hell you're talking about."

"Oh you do swear."

"Oh go f-."

"Ah,” Tony says and smiles. 

Steve huffs at him and glowers.

"Okay, give me a kiss."

"What?" Steve says. "I am not kissing you."

"Why not?"

"You're a piece of work, you know that?" 

"I sure the hell am,” Tony says and winks at Steve, who does a double take. "Come on, sweetheart, give us a kiss."

"I should just to shut you up."

"Oh a challenge, come on now, what are you afraid of? Kiss me."

"Tony, no, I don't think it's approp-."

"You don't have the balls."

"Watch your language."

"Kiss me."

"No."

"Yes, come on, you know you want to."

"Tony!"

"Kiss me."

"Damn it," Steve says and clasps Tony in his arms, his strong arms, and presses an angry closed mouthed kiss on his lips. But as soon as Tony gropes and finds Steve's hand, tangles with it, grasps it - Steve wavers in their embrace. The force of the link nearly knocks both of them over.

It is astounding and potent, it shatters his expectations and it is like a living thing. He cannot describe it because it is both a separate thing and something innately and intimately apart of him. Before it had been a collision of their souls but now it is more, it is an detonation, a conflagration that consumes and devours and he welcomes it. He god damned welcomes it. 

He wants more and shoves a little with his body and Steve, big, strong, muscular Steve stumbles backward to the bed and crumples as Tony literally crawls up and onto him. He feels the slight ping of the needle as the IV is loosed and he doesn't care. He only wants this, he wants to explore it, feel it. He wants to bathe in it. 

It is hot and warm and cool all at once. It is the world with stars above it in a crystalline perfect veil of night. It is the sun blazing in the sky giving life and warmth. It is water and air and earth and fire. It is all of this but none of it. He cannot explain the link because it is beyond his meager brain. His body begs him for more and his hands are searching down to Steve's pants.

"No, no," Steve says as he breaks away.

"Steve, please, I want, you have to-." Tony's not sure how to say it, how he can explain he needs this more than his life, that the bond between Tony and Steve - the possibility of the bond growing and connecting them forever is what has been missing in his life all these many years. 

"I know, I feel it to, I want it to," Steve says and kisses Tony but it is soft. "I want it to, but not here, not now."

"Soon, Steve?" Tony says as he lies his body over Steve's on the bed.

"Yes, always Tony, I'm so sorry, yes, yes, yes," Steve says.

Tony wants to believe it, he yearns for nothing more but to relax into Steve's arms and believe he's finally home. 

Steve slips his hand into Tony's and the brand warms. 

"Yes," Steve says and brushes his lips on Tony's temple as they curl on the bed together.

"Yes," Tony says in a murmur and closes his eyes. He's safe, and finally, home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are only a few more chapters left - I think three at this point. I am hoping I can finish them before I go in for my surgery and treatments - FX! Thanks for your continued support of this story.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Tony finally consummate their bond.
> 
> Please note the rating has been changed to M

Tony throws his tool across the lab bench and yells at JARVIS to turn off the fucking music. He turns over his palm, the one with his soul mate mark. It looks different since his rescue and his meeting with Steve. It looks vibrant and healthy, the black smudge only a small stain directly in the center of what Tony can only describe as a star shape on his palm. He traces the outline and wonders if when he does touch it can Steve feel it. He grumbles and fists his hand. He should be resentful, he shouldn't be angry, but Steve isn't here and he'd thought they'd gotten over all this crap.

Once he'd returned to the States, Steve received a quick forty eight hour emergency leave since his soulmate had been found and he requested to be with Tony while he was recovering. Though Tony had refused any medical attention once he'd had his interview with the press and ended up declaring that Stark Industries would no longer be in the weapons business, he'd been put under medical care, anyway. He slept for a good twenty hours and, after, hadn't been up to much else except for the occasional cuddle and kiss by Steve. When Steve left he'd been adamant about returning.

"I don't get it, why you came back if you don't want to stay," Tony had said from his corner of the couch.

"I want to stay, Tony, I do, but I have obligations. I can't go AWOL from my unit. You know that," Steve said and rubbed circles on Tony's bare feet.

They'd been holed up in Tony's Malibu house for the last few hours of Steve’s leave. Tony wanted more, yearned for more than just a simple kiss, a shared touched. He wonders if Steve just doesn't want him in that way. It is possible, soulmates does not necessarily equate to sexual partners and lovers. Joining his soul mark with Steve's though hadn't revealed anything but love and passion and desire. The desire still turns over like a tightened coil in his groin.

"So you're going to keep on with this crap, and the army shit and all that?" Tony had said and now admits that probably wasn't the best way to phrase his question. He'd thought Steve would drop everything to be with him, but Steve had responsibilities, for Christ's sake, he's Captain America. He can't just drop everything to be with Tony.

Steve fumed and ranted and raved for over an hour. It took Tony nearly passing out when he stood to intervene on the tirade and to yank Steve away from his agitated state. Steve became solicitous again and mother henned Tony back to bed. Unfortunately, it was for needed sleep and nothing more. Tony wanted so much more, but Steve had said only when they were both ready and Tony wasn't. Not in Steve's deluded brain. He refused to touch Tony if he wasn't one hundred percent.

Steve left the next morning and Tony stood at the door to the mansion staring out at the Malibu landscape and felt the coldness of that abandoned cave seep back into his bones. Then the shit really hit the fan.

Stane came back into the picture - well he'd never left - but the situation turned from just this side of ripe to spoiled and horribly rotten. After Steve left for his deployment, Tony threw himself into the work on his creation, his suit of armor. It consumed him, kept him well and truly busy. But the SI's stock tanked and everyone thought he'd gone with it, they all doubted he could handle the after effects of being tortured and kidnapped.

When he flew the suit of armor for the first time, well, the new first time, it was a rush of adrenaline and shit ass fear. He loved it and reveled in it. He figured out the icing problem and immersed himself in the data plans to make it better and faster. All along he ignored what Stane had been up to, he swept it all under the carpet and ignored it.

Of course, the shit hit the fan with that dickweed, Stane. But Tony won, he always wins. Yet, now as he thinks of his victory against Stane and everything that happened in the last year, he feels bereft. Tony doesn't like to feel loss; he doesn't like to admit he has connections, not since Steve left him all those years ago. He keeps things at a distance, safety is distance, he learned this long ago. So when he allowed himself the hope that Steve would be interested in something more, something with connection only to be abandoned again - he hates himself a little more. 

He decides - rather abruptly - that he needs to weld shit together. He doesn't even give a crap what shit it is. But he'd like to figure out a new torso design and might need a molding for it. He puts on his protective helmet and burns the welding torch hot and bright. Without delay, he has JARVIS blast the music as he works the metal and loses himself in the rhythm of form and function and how it melds together.

This is how he misses the fact that he's no longer alone. This is how he misses the announcement by JARVIS that Steve entered the workshop and waits for him. This is the reason why hours later when he does look up and sees Steve resting on the beat up thread bare sofa, his hair mussed up and his mouth slightly parted, he drops the torch and does a double take.

"Hmm, JARVIS?"

"Yes, sir."

"There's a visitor in my laboratory."

"Yes there is sir."

"And why don't I know about it?"

"When I tried to announce Captain Rogers' arrival you told me to fuck a duck and to shut it. I thought it prudent to allow you your creativity time." Tony huffs out a breath. He knows Steve isn't supposed to be here. He left for his deployment over three weeks ago and he was going on some high level mission. 

Steve looks beaten down as Tony glances over him. There are smudges of bruises along his hairline and a lingering cut near his cheek. From what Tony has been able to hack from the SHIELD database, he knows that Steve should heal fairly quickly and without issue due to the super soldier serum. He studies Steve, stretched out on the couch, his long muscular body - so different and foreign from the Steve he knew. 

Can he love this Steve?

This Steve is different, strong, confident, a hero - everything he had dreamed to be. 

He fell in love with a Steve who dreamed, but in a lost almost desperate kind of way, a Steve who needed him as part of his definition of success because he would never realize his dream. In some ways, in some hidden ways, Tony thought Steve would always be his support, his second. He'd gone over this with Steve before and though he believed the goodness which was an innate part of Steve could have lead him to be primary in their bond, there had always been doubt. Of the two of them, Tony had the opportunity, the brilliance, and the health. 

Tony looks down at the arc reactor embedded in his chest, the arc reactor with the palladium core slowly poisoning him. If he's truthful with himself, he has to admit that he's jealous, envious of this wonderfully new body and health Steve possesses now.

He could just blow Captain America off, tell him that he can’t see him, can’t touch him, can’t be with him because the good Captain has obviously just come back from being wounded. Tony scoffs at his internal dialogue. He’ll never do that, he considers if this just means he’s desperate and needy.

“Stop it,” Steve murmurs and Tony realizes he’s been locked in his brain for several long minutes.

“Stop what?”

“Questioning everything, you’re waking me up,” Steve says and pries an eye open. Now, that Tony really examines him, Steve looks bone weary and beyond beaten, like he hasn’t slept in more days than he can count.

“What are you doing here?”

“Heard about Stane, wanted to make sure you were all right,” Steve says and climbs up into a sitting position. Even Tony sees that he wavers ever so slightly.

“Oh, thanks for the save Captain America,” Tony says and he can’t help the resentment in his voice.

Steve’s shoulders droop and Tony feels all the more disappointed in himself, but he can’t stop. He wanted Steve, and Steve just took off –again.

“I just-.” Steve peers up at Tony as he stands over his crouched form on the couch. “I just wanted to see if you were okay.”

For a moment, he reminds Tony of that small rail thin boy he used to be. It’s hard to shove away the softness, the desire to brush the mess of hair from his brow, but Tony does it. “Well, I’m okay. You can leave now, and do whatever it is superheroes do these days.”

“Tony, I-.”

He isn’t waiting; he’s walking away back to his shop, back to his robots and his suit. What makes sense to him, not this fucking soul brand on his hand. Why the hell does it burn so brightly, and ache all the damned time?

“Tony.”

He whips around and glares at Steve. “What the hell do you want?”

Steve stands next to the couch and although he dwarfs it, and just about everything else in the room – including Tony – he personifies defeated. “Okay, Tony, I’m, I’m sorry I bothered you.” He rubs at the wound on his hairline, grimaces, but nods. “I just wanted to make sure everything was all right.”

“I thought you had obligations that you couldn’t just up and leave.”

Steve sighs. “If you really want to know, I threatened my superior officers. If I’m not arrested and court martialed I’ll be surprised. I needed to see you; I needed to know you were all right, that Stane hadn’t-.” And here he breaks down, he presses his lips together and glances away from Tony but his shoulders shake – just once in a fine tremor. He straightens them, fights for his composure, wins, and then says, “Okay, then I’ll leave.”

“Christ,” Tony says and catches his arm before he’s able to exit. “Steve, I’m just being a shithead. Christ, you’re hurt.” He searches Steve’s wounded face, but it is not the physical wounds but the emotional ones inflicted upon him over the years they’ve been apart that Tony sees for the first time. He understands it hasn’t been easy for either of them.

“Steve,” Tony says and slides his branded hand into Steve’s and the world changes, transforms before them into a secret, sacred place. 

He’s not sure what happens or how it happens but the world transfigures into touch and heat and need mixed with the cold fear of loss. It shifts to red and he becomes an integrated part of Steve, he’s not just Tony anymore, but something revered and precious. He knows this is how Steve thinks of him. He understands that this is something apart from the physical world and something beyond mere existence. 

It isn’t about clothes being tossed and cast aside, it isn’t about wet mouths and kisses, and catches of breath. This is the merging of their souls as their bodies collide and form and join together, their souls wind and twist and thread through one another into a deeper tapestry of love and something he can only describe as holy. He cannot explain it any other way. What he shares with Steve is blessed and consecrated by the sheer act of giving his body over to Steve, by the knowledge that his soul was complete, had never been complete before this moment, before this – this soulmaking between them.

Once they are shivering, trembling with the after effects lying in a tumble of limbs and sweat on the couch, they fall into a revered silence. But there isn’t silence anymore. Tony feels the beat, the pulse of Steve through him. He can actually touch deep inside, the breath of life, the spark of Steve’s flame within Tony. He knows Steve, he feels Steve, he lives in and around Steve. 

This is all he’s ever wanted, all he looked and prayed and craved for so very long. There are moments of anticipation and wonder in his life, when he hoped and wished for something, only to be slightly disappointed with the outcome. But this, this is different. He’d thought it would be about the feel of his body, the need and yearning in his groin, the thrust and shove of body and ass, and heat against one another. It isn’t – not at all. It is about this thread of life between them, it pulsates with such vibrancy that it cows Tony in some ways. It is more than he dreamed of or even can fathom now. He’s stunned into silence as he weaves his way through the binding that has become the bond. They are linked inexplicably, and forever, together. They are one.

He tries to stifle the quaking of his body from the profundity of this understanding, but he fails and Steve, leans down to kiss his temple. They are sprawled over the couch, Tony on top of Steve. They bodies are skin against skin and it is dear and something Tony wants to cherish forever, to have forever, but he suddenly knows these times will be snatched from their daily lives. They are lucky to have this hour together.

“When do you leave,” Tony whispers not wanting to disturb their perfect peace.

“Thirty hours about,” Steve says and there is already longing in his voice. “I’m sorry, Tony. I have a mission.” Regret laces his voice. “I shouldn’t have done this; I shouldn’t have started something I can be here to-.”

Tony twists around and attacks Steve’s mouth. When he comes away, they pant and heave for air. “Don’t say it. I don’t want you to regret this. I’ve never felt like this before.” It is the first time in his life he hasn’t felt utterly alone. He’ll never be alone again. 

Without hesitation Steve kisses Tony again, and it is light and airy and it feels like Tony’s flying as they don’t even have to grasp hands together anymore to fuse souls – their souls are one. It brings life and love and desire into a crystalline focus that reminds Tony of the perfection of snowflakes built on the wonder of hydrogen bonds into a beautiful sculpture. The bond is like that but stronger, more covalent but volatile like ionic blasts. 

They fall back into each other’s arms and end up making love in a slow and purposeful motion. All the time Tony never takes his eyes from Steve’s, he never closes them, he never lets go. If he does, he’ll surely fall.

After Tony has traced every line and muscle, every sinew and chiseled curve, after Steve has graced Tony’s scarred chest with tender kisses and nearly worshipped every portion of his body, they end up in Tony’s kitchen with sweats and t-shirts on, mussed and sated. Except – not – it seems Steve needs a heck of a lot more food than he used to.

Steve bustles around the kitchen cooking what he calls breakfast for dinner. Tony smiles and allows himself to wallow in the warmth of love and sex. He deserves it after all, considering how many times he just wallows in self-hatred. 

Steve putters around as Tony asks about his missions. Raising an eyebrow, Steve shakes his head. “Not really supposed to tell anyone.”

“I’m Iron Man and I can find out very quickly.”

Steve kisses the top of Tony’s head as he passes him. “And don’t let me get into how much I hate that you put yourself in danger with that armor.”

“Yeah, let’s not go there.” Tony knows it will be a bone of contention.

“I don’t have much time,” Steve says as if to agree with Tony that they shouldn’t fight over it. He serves Tony a plate heaping with pancakes, scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast. He also places a cup of fruit next to the plate and a mug of coffee.

“I don’t eat this much.”

“You don’t eat that much in a week,” Steve says and challenges Tony with a look he might have inherited from his mother.

“Okay, okay,” Tony says and digs in. “Now, you’re going to have to tell me about your top secret mission.”

Steve settles in next to Tony, his plate twice as high with pancakes and eggs. “Just another lunatic. He thinks he’s some neo-Nazi or something. Calls himself Red Skull and has an organization called Hydra.”

“They’ve been on the news, claiming responsibility for all kinds of terrorist attacks.”

“Well, we have a line on them now. We were able to get some intel.” Steve scoops up some eggs and chows down. “It will be a quick in and out, but it will finish him off.”

“Wow, you’re confident,” Tony says and he likes this side of Steve.

Steve sits back and studies Tony before says, “Sometimes, sometimes not. When Bucky died, I thought it was the end. I thought I couldn’t do this anymore, then we found you – or I could feel you through the link. It was the only reason I continued to fight.”

Tony creeps his hand over to Steve’s and grasps it. It sparks the soul’s embers and spreads an acceptance through Tony’s chest. 

“I’m gonna ask to be retired after this mission.”

“What?” Tony says.

“I want to stay here with you, now. I can ask since we’re officially bonded now.” He opens his hand and the mark that was there is now entwined with another mark, a mark representing Steve as well. Tony uncurls his fingers to reveal the exact same mark – it is the triangle with a star set in the middle. Their marks have merged.

While Tony wants Steve to be with him, safe and here and always within touching distance, he also recognizes that Steve needs to have a definition, to be someone, strive for something. “I don’t want to take you away from something you love, something you want.”

Steve reaches out and caresses Tony’s cheek. “I have what I love right here.”

Tony should have known it wouldn’t last – how could it? He’s Tony Stark after all, and no good things come to him.

Steve leaves for his last mission.

It is his last mission.

Steve saves the world and Tony loses everything.

Steve drives the Hydra plane into the Arctic Ocean, and he takes the last of Tony’s life with him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. Life has been difficult for me. Only one chapter left. I hope you are still interested, dear readers. FX that you are!


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tony suffers the loss of Steve through seven years.....

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A tiny bit of consent issues with soul bonding and joining but not much.

They search, of course they search, but Steve’s body is never found. Pepper sits with him, often. He likes to stay in the shadows, now; he doesn’t want to see the light. Eventually, he walks away from her because she doesn’t listen to his words; she tells him he has to accept Steve’s death. Tony wanders back to his workshop, sits staring at the mark on his hand. 

It hasn’t faded or turned black. It is still there. But his hand feels cold like ice. He cannot get it warm, even when he wraps it around a mug of hot coffee. His hand freezes. It constantly reminds him that Steve died in the frozen tundra of the Arctic Circle. He wonders if it will haunt him all the days of his life. If this is what having an albatross is like. He giggles into his tumbler of Scotch. He keeps alcohol close; it is his succor. Because in the end it doesn’t matter. What does it matter? The length of time he has left can be measured in months, probably really weeks.

The palladium eats away at him, devouring him as it poisons him. He feels it crawl through him like worms squirming under his skin, just below the surface. He spends hours staring at the data, figuring how long it will take to kill him. Maybe it is better this way, at least Steve had been spared watching him slowly disintegrate. At least Steve went fast. 

He chokes in a sob and clenches the glass of Scotch. 

“You’re going to drink yourself to death before the palladium kills you.”

He rolls his eyes and looks behind the car he has parked in his workshop. He finds refuge in the convertible. Standing to the side and leaning against the wall the apparition looks almost real. He salutes the hallucination of Steve – it isn’t the first time his liquored up brain conjured shit up. 

“How the hell are you, Cap?” He raises the glass and then swallows it down.

“Apparently better than you,” Steve says and then the ghost or hallucination is next to the car studying Tony with critical eyes that hold a soft glimmer in them. “You’re dying, Tony.”

“I know I kind of figured that one out already, ghost.”

“If you die, what will happen to me?” Steve asks.

A shot of piercing cold runs up Tony’s arm from his hand. He hisses, shakes his hand out, and opens and closes his fist a few times. It feels like he’s been burned by dry ice. When he looks up from examining his hand, the ghost is gone and he feels all the more foolish for it.

Pepper supports him through his self-inflected haze. Rhodey is there as well as Happy. They all try their best to rescue him from circling the black hole building in his chest, consuming him and his will to live. They try and he cannot blame them for their lack of success. He’s bound and determined to kill himself – he really doesn’t have a choice. 

Teetering on the edge, Tony makes one good move. He places Pepper in charge of Stark Industries. It changes everything and nothing at all. The market has a hissy fit over it, but he doesn’t give a shit. She’s the right person for the job, and he won’t back down. The board can go and fuck itself into tomorrow.

He ignores everything – tries to act the part – and sometimes he actually succeeds. Someone named Natalie becomes his newest personal assistant. She beats the crap out of Happy and stares like a cold ice queen at him half of the time, the other half he can see a look of – not pity – but empathy in her eyes like she understands how it might feel to lose a soul mate. 

He notices she hides her hand and never allows anyone to look at her palm. He doesn’t quiz her on it at all. He figures suffering is a personal art, not something you share with others. Before he leaves for the races in Monaco, the ghost of Steve visits him again. He happens to be lying awake in his large bed, staring up into the shadowed room, watching as the moonlight shifts about it with the wind and the trees.

“Don’t do this to yourself,” Steve says as he settles on the bed next to Tony. He wonders at the weight of the phantom on the bed, how he can feel Steve sitting on the bed.

“That’s rich,” Tony says. “Look at you, telling me what to do. You’re dead.”

“Am I?” Steve smiles at him and then opens his branded palm and it shines in the night like his arc reactor. It throws light in counterpoint to Tony’s own chest light. 

Tony inches his hand out from beneath the blanket and his own brand glows bright and beautiful, as if it thrives and is alive. It breaks him all the more to see it so brilliantly. He doesn’t realize his eyes are tearing until he looks back up at the ghost and his vision blurs. 

He wipes away the unshed tears and says, “Why the hell are you here?”

“I think you need me. I’m here because you need someone to tell you that you’re worth more than this,” Steve says and points at Tony as if there’s something concrete to show Tony how very desperate he’s become. “I think you need someone to tell you you’re worth living, Tony. You do realize you’re worth it, right?”

“Why the fuck are you here?” Tony says and the rage wells up so fast, so harsh it smacks of a fist to the gut. “You are dead. Gone. You left me here to pick up the pieces, to die on my own. If you were planning on dying why the fuck did you bond with me? Why?”

The spirit bows his head and his shoulders slump. His voice quiets the room as he speaks, “I never wanted to hurt you, Tony. Know that. I always wanted to be with you, even when we were separated. You are my heart, you are my soul.” He lifts his gaze to Tony. “If you live, at least – at least my soul lives on in you.”

“Steve,” Tony says in rasp of emotion. He reaches out and the specter just dissipates and he’s alone in the dark of his room only the light of his arc reactor shining to tell him he’s alive. Even though he knows it is a lie, he wants the shade of Steve to come back.

What comes next is not what he wishes for. Instead, Vanko comes on the scene and Tony’s life is ripped apart in new and different ways. Pepper and Rhodey do everything they can to stop Tony’s self-inflicted spiral down into the depths of his self-imposed hell. Sometimes he wishes Vanko had killed him on the racetrack. But he doesn’t and then Justin Dickhead Hammer gets involved and Tony’s life spirals in ever increasing circles that wavering and cruise without destination until he’s in a donut shop talking to the guy with one eye patch and an attitude big enough to challenge Tony’s.

The next day Tony finds himself faced with the possibilities that everything in his life has been stilted and ugly because he never understood his father. He knows Fury doesn’t get it. That his father was a homophobic jerk who wanted nothing to do with his souler son. 

Fury leaves Coulson to babysit which irritates Tony to no end. How the hell can they get away with leaving someone to watch over him? He’s a private citizen with rights that SHIELD just negates with impunity. He thinks he should fight it, but something quiet and reassuring (he thinks of it as Steve’s spirit) tells him not to. 

One day when he’s in the middle of constructing a collider in his basement, Coulson comes in and offers him a lunch of turkey wraps and pickles. It seems weird to sit down and break bread with someone who’s first name is Agent, but Tony shrugs and chows down. He hasn’t eaten in a while so he thinks he should part take just to satisfy the biological necessity. For a moment that draws him to his hand, the bio-sociological imperative – and then Tony ignores it again.

“You shouldn’t do that,” Coulson says.

“Do what?” Tony asks as he chews a large bite from the wrap.

“Ignore what happened to you,” Coulson says. “It will catch up with you. Believe me; I’ve seen it happen to enough people.”

“Have you now, that’s interesting.” Tony quirks a smile and then says, “No, no, it’s not. I really cannot see how you would think it was appropriate to come in here and pass judgments on me.”

“I think you’re waiting for someone to come in and tell you the truth,” Coulson says. “I think you’re hoping someone will agree with you and tell you because your mark hasn’t wasted away, disintegrated that he’s not dead. I think you want someone to validate what you’re feeling.”

Tony goes to open his mouth, but Coulson places his untouched wrap on the table between them. As he stands up and wipes his hands, he says, “For what it’s worth, I’m not judging you. And I personally think he’s still alive.”

It takes several seconds for the meaning of Coulson’s words to hit Tony. He scrambles to stand up and catch the agent before he escapes. “Wait, wait.”

Coulson halts at the lift and turns back to Tony. There’s a glimmer in the uneven light, a smirk that whispers of knowledge Tony can’t glean.

“You think he’s alive.”

Coulson points to Tony’s hand. “You tell me.”

“He crashed a plane into the Arctic Ocean. He’s pretty dead.”

“Do you tell him that when he visits, or do you think he’s just a ghost?”

“What the-?” Tony says as the elevator arrives. “JARVIS, no, no you are not to let Agent Dickhead to leave.”

Coulson smiles in that reversed way and folds his hands in front of him. He’s completely non-confrontational, but at the same time he’s a threat. 

“What do you know?”

“I know that the palladium in your arc reactor is killing you, which all of SHIELD knows. I also know that Steve Rogers wasn’t picked by Doctor Erskine as a lark, he was chosen because he was marked. It was one of the reasons. I know that some soul bonds are so strong and so entangled that they allow an almost telepathic communication, a communication which can seem like you’re speaking to a ghost of the person.”

“Telepa-.” Tony frowns and spins around on his heel. It can’t be right, there’s no way. Even though he’s played around with the idea, argued the idea of Steve surviving, the thought of it defies logic. Steve could not have survived. “Is he alive?”

Coulson shakes his head and says, “I don’t know. SHIELD kind of figured they’d leave that up to you to find out.” He presses the button for the lift again and JARVIS opens the doors. Turning to Tony as he steps into the elevator car, he says, “Got some work out in New Mexico. Looks like we have an anomaly out there. You’re on your own. Make it good, Iron Man.”

Tony doesn’t answer just lets the agent leave him. He goes back to his work and the ghost reappears. The specter doesn’t say anything just remains present as if to offer Tony serenity and peace. He thinks of it as a balancing presence to his constant kinetic energy. 

When he falls asleep curled in the corner of his lab on a mat he uses to slide under equipment he’s fixing, the phantom lies next to him. Steve’s eyes are kind and soft as Tony drifts off and Tony only wishes for truth in his life. The ghost cannot be real; he’s asked JARVIS to run scans and analyses when he sees the ghost. It comes up empty every time.

He holds his branded hand to his chest, it never gets warm. It is always cold to remind him Steve died in the frigid waters of the Arctic Ocean.

But the ghost is there in the morning to push him to figure out how to save himself. Running his experiment to find the core for his arc reactor, he listens as JARVIS ticks off the data. It looks good; he’s going to be able to do this. He smiles. JARVIS congratulates him on his discovery and he grins at the success. For an instant he thinks he’s betraying Steve’s memory – because he shouldn’t be celebrating when Steve is dead.

“Don’t do that,” the ghost says.

“JARVIS, let’s finish off the analysis to see if it is compatible as a core to the arc reactor,” Tony says, deciding it best to shut out the hallucination. If he wants to live, he has to push beyond the grief, beyond his yearning for what cannot be. Coulson’s words or not, the truth of the matter remains, Steve crashed a plane into the ocean. Steve is dead.

“That’s better,” Steve says. “It’s good that you’re moving on.”

Tony smirks; he’s starting to want to beat the ghost. Ghosts should not be smug. He scans through the data feed and he can see already that it looks better than he expected. 

“You think it will work?” Steve says and sidles right up against Tony. He can very nearly smell him, the light cologne Steve always wore. It is just memories bubbling to the surface. But the words of Coulson echo in the workshop and he wonders if there’s any truth to it.

“Are you real?”

“I’m not sure how to answer that,” Steve says.

“You’re just a manifestation of my grief,” Tony says and he’s fairly certain that Pepper would be proud of him for using some of the psycho-babble that the therapist she hired for him might use. 

“No, no I’m not,” Steve answers as he peers over Tony’s shoulder at the data readout. “You didn’t listen very well to the Agent.”

“I don’t listen to authority figures very well; you would know that if you were real.”

“Wouldn’t I know that if I was a manifestation of your mind?” Steve says.

Tony swears. “Christ, stop trying to confuse me. You know you are a pain in the ass.”

Steve quirks his eyebrow and chuckles. “I guess – but I thought I was just a figment of your imagination.”

JARVIS chimes in to inform Tony that he has a partial analysis of the new element and sends a stream of new data onto the main console. Leaning on his cupped hand, Tony scrolls over the data, pleased with his findings.

“Take care of yourself, Tony.”

“Hmm?” Tony jolts to attention because something in the specter’s voice if off, touched with sorrow. Looking up, he glimpses a faded image of Steve standing toward the entrance to his workshop. “What?”

Steve raises his hand and says, “Take care, Tony, know that I love you.”

“Wait, what? Are you leaving?” 

There’s a sadness permeating the air, it feels like loss, and goodbye, and Tony hates it. Why does grief keep coming back like a vicious tide to rake the shoreline and devour his foundation? 

“It’s time, you’re moving on now, I have to leave.” Steve offers him a small smile. “Live well, live for both of us.”

Tony grimaces – he thinks about what Coulson said. How he believed that Steve could still be alive, that his undamaged mark meant something. He doesn’t want the ghost to go away, if that means he has to give up on Steve. “You don-don’t have to go.”

Bowing his head for only a moment then looking back up at Tony, Steve considers him – his eyes kind and so, so blue even as he seems to fade even more. “Yes, yes I do, Tony. Live for both of us, good bye.”

And in a hush he is gone.

Tony pants and there’s no air, and he feels a panic rush of pain stab through him. At that moment, he’s called about Hammer and his damned drones. He shuts the door on everything, and turns toward the future.

Steve is dead; he is not.

*oOo*  
His life changes in some many different directions. It skews onto obtuse avenues that he never before ventured. Things transformed that night, when he said goodbye to the ghost of Steve and embraced living again. Everything became vibrant and alive again. He shifted his life from existing to actually living. 

He kissed Pepper.

His life changed and he considered it for the better. He would grieve for many months to come; he would stare at his hand and wonder why it never felt warm, and wish he hadn’t lost Steve. But the connection diminished in ways he could not have predicted. His mark remained the same, but the pulse of life, the bond, quieted into what he could only describe as hibernation. It dwindled and dissipated and he accepted that this was his soul’s way to move past the stages of grief. 

Tony shifted gears, allowed himself to fall in love again, and found a certain solace in the arms of Pepper. She never judged him, never demanded recompense for his moodiness when particular dates would pop up and he would squirrel himself away in his workshop to mourn the loss of what could have been.

They became a power couple; she headed up Stark Industries as he fashioned the future of technology. He asked her to marry him, she politely declined. 

“One day you may regret asking me, and I don’t want you to ever look at me with resentment,” Pepper had said.

“I’ll never resent being with you, Pepper.”

She’d kissed him lightly on the forehead and stood from their nest in the bed. “Let’s keep it that way.”

He never asked again.

After seven years and many agents badgering him including Maria Hill, Natasha Romanov, and who would have guessed, Clint Barton, he finally decided it would be a good idea to work with SHIELD instead of outside of their influence. He mainly wanted to get into their pants – not literally – but figuratively inside their pants to figure out what the hell was going on in the world, especially with the big guy Thor. 

He was fairly certain that the Thor from New Mexico might actually be the Thor from the House of Asgard. He needed access to SHIELD computers to find out, so he blithely went along with their little game. They kept denying him membership to their little band, the Avengers Initiative. Apparently, he doesn’t play well with others.

He rolls his eyes; after years of showing his mettle as a peacekeeper and not a war monger he still cannot understand what the hell they want from him. He’s not prepared when the phone call comes, he’s completely taken off guard.

Pepper has been in Japan for the last week with plans to remain there for at least another ten days. Over the course of the last month, he’s been holed up in his lab trying to design a new modular Stark Phone which would revolutionize the way people upgrade their smart phones. It’s simple enough, but he wants it to be able to adapt with the different developing technologies. That means he has to predict as a futurist what is on the horizon not only a month down the line but a year, two years, even ten years down the road in order for the modular upgrades to work.

He’d been in his lab working for over fifty hours straight. He’s always hampered by his marked hand, because it runs colder as if he’s suffering from constant frostbite, he often has a difficult time with fine motor control. Finally giving into his frustration, he decides to drop into bed for a few hours and just forget the shitty thing. As he falls into bed, JARVIS announces that SHIELD is on the phone.

“I’m not in, definitely out. Out like a light, gone, switched off, you get the deal.”

“Sir, I have Agent Coulson on the phone. He says it is an emergency.”

Immediately, Tony sits up in bed. “Lights.” They come on to 50% and Tony rubs at his already dry and reddened eyes. “What? Is it Pepper, is she okay?”

“Sir, would you like for me to put Agent Coulson on the line?”

“Yes, fuck yes.”

“Agent Coulson, you are now connected,” JARVIS says.

“Mister Stark?”

“Yes, no, what are you calling me for in the middle of the night?”

“It’s two in the afternoon, your time,” Coulson says.

Tony looks around his darkened room. “It is?” He frowns; in all actuality the agent is probably correct. After all, Tony rarely follows the dictates of modern life. “Of course, it is. What the hell is going on?”

“I’ve been pressed by Director Fury to inform you that SHIELD has recovered the plane Captain Rogers went down in seven years ago.”

The air in his lung stops moving, his heart constricts and tightens in his chest. He doesn’t know what happens, or how it happens, but he’s up and moving around the room like a drunkard. He staggers and stumbles as the agent speaks.

“It was located by Russians, sir, and we are currently preparing to open it up. We’ve stabilized the craft so it won’t sink any further into the ice.”

All he hears is ice. He glares down at his hand, his forever chilled hand and fists it. “Ice.”

“Yes, Director Fury would like to know if you would like to be present when we open it up.”

Open it up – the words ring in his head. He shivers as he thinks of it, the cold, the solitude, the complete isolation of dying alone. It occurs to him that Steve might have been awake, might have been aware when he went down, when the collision with the Earth trapped him, when he died alone. 

“Mister Stark?” Coulson says and his voice is not unkind.

“Yeah, yes, yes, I want to be there. Send me the coordinates, I can be there ASAP.”

“Sending now, sir,” Coulson says and then adds, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“Is that what it is, Agent?” Tony says as he grips the doorframe to the en suite bathroom. “Is it a loss? I thought you believed otherwise.”

He hears Coulson heave in a deep breath. “If there was anyone outside you, sir, who believed in Captain America, it would have been me. In the end though we are all subject to irrefutable evidence.”

“And this is it, isn’t it?” Tony says and he wants to crumple and fall. 

“It seems that way,” Coulson says. “Will you be able to get here, Mister Stark? I could send Agent Barton to your location to pick you up.”

“No, that won’t be necessary,” Tony says and ends the call. “I’ll be there.”

He goes into the bathroom and stares at his face in the mirror. Seven years gone and lost, seven years of pain and living while Steve lay dead, decaying and lost in the frozen tundra of the north. He shudders as he turns on the faucets, puts his cold hand under the stream of hot water. 

As he studies his face, he sees the lines and course of his life etched around his eyes, down the line of his cheeks. He wonders what state Steve will be in but he stops his brain from going there. He cannot go there. Not yet, not until he has to face it, face death and all her dark companions.

“Call Pepper,” he says as he bends down to wash away the unshed tears burning in his eyes. 

“Yes, sir.” 

He tries to decide whether or not he should shower but then Pepper is on the phone and he’s explaining the current situation as he sits dejected on his bed.

“I’m going to the site.”

“Okay,” she says and he watches her face on the floating projection above him. It is steeled and frightened. 

“You’re not losing me,” Tony says because it is true – because Steve is dead and he’s going to claim the body.

She looks down at something out of sight and then back up at Tony. “I know, just-.”

“What?” He tilts his head and sees her betray her feelings again by looking down again. “Pep?”

She concentrates on him now, her eyes serious and concerned. He hates it when she gets that look on her face; it means she has issues with his behavior or that he’s done something so hideous that even she cannot fathom what the hell he’s up to. 

“Pep?”

“It’s just that I saw what it did to you when he first died, I don’t want it to happen again. Can you get Colonel Rhodes to go with you?”

“What? Rhodey? I don’t think-.” Then he stops, stops dead because she is right from every freaking angle she is right. This will break him, seeing Steve ruined and dead and decayed. He shivers in a breath to steady himself, because he’s Iron Man, he can do this. He has to do this alone. Alone. Not with anyone else. He shouldn’t rely on everyone to support his emotional breakdown. He’s done that before, but now, Steve deserves Tony’s support – Steve deserves the respect that only Tony can give him. “I’ll call him after.”

“After, Tony?” She’s disappointed in his choice.

“I need to do this myself, Pepper. He -.” He chokes a bit on the well of emotion, the sorrow, the loss of everything he dreamed disappearing in a flood of ice and water. “I need to show him I can do this.”

She nods and he can spot tears in her eyes. “I’ll be home soon, okay?”

He bites back the pain and says, “I’ll see you then, don’t rush for me. Dead is dead, right?” It isn’t like his soul mate hasn’t been dead for the last seven years. It isn’t like he hasn’t already dealt with the grief, the agony of loss. But this is a chance for closure. 

She doesn’t like his cavalier attitude because she pinches up her face at his last comment, but she recognizes it as his defense system – he’s sure. She tells him she loves him and signs off. 

He stays glued to the spot staring into space thinking of the hands entangled, souls webbed together, bodies entwined and then he closes his eyes and inhales. He wants to break – right now, right here, but he can’t. He doesn’t have time. He’ll break later, but then he just feels like a distracted, shallow heroine from a Civil War novel. Frowning he tells JARVIS to prepare the armor as he decides to forego the shower.

The flight to the coordinates brings a certain quiet reserve to Tony, something foreign that crawls up his spine like a thousand fire ants. He doesn’t like it – he doesn’t want this quietude, he wants action and to get there and get it over with but at the same time he dreads it. The dread lies like a heavy thump of coal in his belly. It feels like it might ignite and burn him from inside out.

When he finally lands outside the encampment in the Arctic Circle his senses are enflamed with so much anxiety and need he’s glad for the suit because his body quakes with the pain of discovery and knowing he is so close to seeing Steve as a corpse and not a living thing anymore. Not living, dead. He exhales out, long and slow. He wants to tap down his emotions. It’s been years, but it hasn’t – not really. He still feels the bond like a throbbing wound deep inside the core of him – in his heart, in his hand, in his bones, and muscles, in every single tissue and organ. He feels Steve as a part of him. He doesn’t matter how long he’s been gone, how long Tony has committed to Pepper – his soul divided into two long ago and he has a weeping wound in him, that will always be him. It is his definition now.

Before he trudges the long path toward the encampment, several of the soldiers in thick parkas and flashlights race out to meet him. One man leads the pack and he assumes it is Coulson. As the wind blows and reveals his face underneath the cover of the hood, Tony sees it is Coulson.

“We’re about to break through the fuselage,” he yells in the wind.

“Right, good.” Tony indicates with a thumbs up.

Coulson waves him toward the encampment and then Tony glimpses it over the ridge of a snowy iceberg – the edge of a black wing sticking up. His heart rebels in his chest and he thinks he might suffer skips and beats out of sync. As Coulson and the other agents climb up the side of the iceberg, Tony lifts off and flies to the area being cut away on the top of the plane. He stands to the side, which he realizes is out of character but right now, he needs the time to accept he’s about to see Steve dead.

Dead.

As he watches, Coulson comes up to him and says, “It might take some time to extract the body, Mister Stark. Would you like to wait at the camp?”

Tony shakes his head and then says, “No, I don’t think so.” He has to get this over with – now is as good a time as any. When he doesn’t give a sarcastic reply, Coulson only nods and walks over to the extraction site.

They wait for another hour as the team assesses the stability of the plane again, and then wrench open the excised portion of the plane to lower a team into the hold. Tony stays on top with Coulson awaiting the report.

At first, all they hear is the breathing of the team members over the communications link frequency that Tony listens in on. Then the crunch of what sounds like snow under their booted feet, finally everything goes silent.

“What?” Tony whispers.

“It’s him.”

Tony gasps in a breath and hopes no one heard it. They ignore it if they do and then Tony asks, “You found the Captain?”

“No, we have his shield,” one of the extraction team says. “Wait, wait. What’s that?”

The link crackles and pops until there’s another voice announcing, “We found him. He’s encased in ice, pretty well preserved. SHIELD will be happy to see the state of the body, good specimen.”

“What?” Tony says and the rage boils up. Specimen – Steve is not a – “Specimen? Captain Rogers is not a fucking specimen; he’s not anyone’s science experiment.”

Coulson lifts his hand as if to quiet Tony. “Understood. Gentlemen, let’s have some decorum and respect for a soldier who died in the line of duty.”

“Yes, sir, sorry sir.”

A few minutes pass and then the extraction team reports, “We’ll need some way to remove the ice block that Captain Rogers is encased in. It won’t fit through the hole if we want to pull him out whole. Sorry about that.”

“Yes, we want to pull him out whole,” Tony says and turns to Coulson on the edge of the tundra in the middle of no man’s land. “Who the fuck are those guys? They sound like freaking vampires.”

Coulson once again raises his hand to stop the onslaught and says, “I understand your position here, I really do, but you have to know that we’re not rescuing Captain Rogers. We’re retrieving his body, and his body will have to be autopsied.”

“Only with my permission.”

As the winds whirl about them and Tony listens to the internal feed from inside of the wreckage, Coulson turns and studies him. “We understand your loss, but, please, as a scientist and engineer you have to understand how vitally important it is for us to use this opportunity to investigate the serum’s interaction with Captain Rogers’ system. We’re lucky he seems to be preserved in some way.”

“Preserved,” Tony says and the word curdles in his stomach. “This isn’t about mourning or grief to SHIELD, this is all about the bottom line – about the super soldier serum, isn’t it.”

Coulson gives him a stare laced with a sharpness that cuts deeper than the cold. “I hoped to find him alive, too.”

Tony doesn’t reply, instead he marches off to the side and launches from the plane and flies to the encampment. No one is going to cut open Steve unless Tony says it is okay. But the truth of the matter is – the truth is Tony understands it, recognizes the needs of scientific pursuit in this area outweighs his sorrow and loss. He wonders that his feelings of loss are so prominent and painful – so much like the first days.

He shuffles his way into one of the tents. Several of the worker bees look up at him, and then go back to their work. One of them – a young woman who gives her name a rapid fire way that Tony doesn’t catch it due to her English accent – comes over and ushers him to an inner room of the large tent. There’s coffee and pastries.

“How civilized,” Tony says as he lifts the face plate.

She shrugs. “Depends on your definition of civilized; there’s no tea.”

“Ah,” Tony says and she departs. Space heaters warm the inside of the tent enclosure and Tony stands by the coffee staring idly at it. He doesn’t have a taste for it, for anything really. He just wants this to be over with; it feels like a fucking nightmare.

“JARVIS?”

“Yes, sir,” JARVIS chimes in.

Before he can request anything Agent Coulson comes in and nods to him. “I thought you might like some company. They’re going to slice open the side of the plane to get the Captain out.”

“I could probably help,” Tony says but hopes they don’t take him up on it.

“Maybe we could just drink some coffee and wait?”

“Maybe.” 

Coulson pours two cups. The paper cups steam in the chilled air. The Agent hands one to him but when he doesn’t accept it, Coulson shrugs as puts it down. Tony picks it up after he retracts his armor from his hand and then Coulson moves to pour some creamer in his own. Tony just drinks it as it is – it is caustic and burns, what he needs right now.

“Clint said you were a sarcastic cuss,” Coulson says.

“Clint?”

“Barton,” Coulson throws a cube of sugar into his cup and stirs it with a wooden stick. “He also said you were devoted to Steve.”

“In another life, I suppose that’s true. But we’ve never had it easy.” He thinks of all the wasted time, and closes his eyes.

“Been rough?”

“Rougher than you know,” Tony says.

“The soul mark’s something to behold, something to cherish. I don’t think society really appreciates the absolute necessity of the mark.” Coulson stares out the back flap of the tent. “He was supposed to give his life, a juncture in time intersected with the bio-sociological imperative.”

“He didn’t need to be my soul mate to succeed.”

“Didn’t he?” Coulson sips his coffee. “Think of all the decisions he had to make, the ones you were there for and the ones you weren’t. I think, in a very real way, being linked to you changed many things for Captain Rogers.”

“Maybe,” Tony says and watches the dark liquid in his cup – even the harsh winds do not touch it. It is like a pool of ink. He blinks away his thoughts because he knows he’s sinking into the pit, the despair that follows him like the ghost of Steve used to, all those long and lonely years ago. “Maybe.” But it is just a murmur not consent. 

Coulson leaves, but before he moves out of the tent’s inner room, he turns back to say, “I wish it hadn’t ended this way; he deserved better.”

“Yeah, yeah, he did.” And Tony knows he’s talking more about a better soul mate. Tony made such a crappy one. He didn’t support Steve; he gave nothing over to Steve. He took and took and took.

“You are completely insane; you know that, don’t you?” 

Tony whips around to see the shade of Steve standing in the corner of the tent. “Where’ve you been all these years?”

“Waiting I suppose, drifting in and out of things. Been so dark,” Steve says but he looks upon Tony with fond eyes and a spark of hope resides in them. “At least you’ve found happiness.”

“Happiness?”

“You have Pepper now, a real life,” Steve says. “That’s good. I think that’s wonderful that you didn’t wait.”

“Wait for what?”

Steve only smiles at him and then a gust of wind batters the side of the tent. The ghost fades and Tony just looks on as if it might return, but it doesn’t. Years, years, it’s been since he’s had a hallucination. 

“Fucking stress,” Tony whispers. 

It takes two days for them to crane lift the block of ice containing Steve out of the wreckage. When they do it is a gloriously sunny day, the rays of daylight glimmer off the snow. For the first time Tony understands how white can be so many different colors, the faceted crystalline structure of the snow shines with a brilliance of iridescent colors. If he hadn’t been watching the encased tomb of his past love, he would have been fascinated by the purity of the tundra’s beauty.

Instead they work to lower the block of ice and several of the technicians with Tony’s help chip away enough of the ice to cart Steve’s tomb into one of the waiting tents. The staff changes – because the requirement centers on the biological preservation of Steve’s body and not the engineering feat of removing it from the broken plane. 

Engineers and mechanics are replaced by doctors, nurses, and biomedical scientists. The place scurries with them as if they are invading roaches. They set about the task of thawing out the body. All the time, Tony watches, sees the obscured face of Steve through the layers of ice. The staff decide on a slow melt of the ice to preserve as much of the biological integrity as possible. They literally use handheld heating device swept over and over the block of ice. The estimated time of defrost is seventy two hours at best.

Tony spends some of the time asleep in his assigned tent, the rest of the time in his suit to ensure he doesn’t freaking freeze to death. When the long day turns into a bright night, Tony settles on the cot with the space heater close to his sleeping bag. As he snuggles into the bag, the shade reappears near the flap of the tent.

“It’s cold,” he says.

Tony rolls his eyes. “How can a hallucination feel anything?”

“Who said I was a hallucination?”

He huffs; he cannot believe how obstinate his own brain can be sometimes. “Really just go away. I don’t need your flak. I don’t even know why you decided to come back and haunt me. I’m stressed, way over stressed.”

“Maybe,” Steve says and then adds, “I’m so cold, Tony. It’s so much colder now than it was before. I can feel it now; it feels like it’s boring into my bones. It hurts like the sting of whips on my bare skin, it -.”

Tony rubs at his eyes and says, “Stop with the poetics, I get it, you’re fucking cold.”

“Yeah, yeah, I am.” Then the ghost does something very peculiar. He holds up his hands and cups them to his mouth. He blows on them as if to warm his fingers with his breath. It would seem ludicrous, silly really, but it isn’t.

It isn’t because Tony feels the slight puff of air stream across his palm, across his soul brand. “What the fuck?” He looks at his hand and then up at the phantom, the apparition. “I shouldn’t – I can- I can feel when you do that.”

The spirit moves and smiles.

“You’re fucking real? Tell me, you’re not real, tell me you’re not real?”

The shade of Steve only smiles and says, “Whoever said I wasn’t?”

Leaping out of bed, the sleeping bag tangled around his legs, Tony yells, “What? What are you saying?”

Just as the shade opens its mouth to speak, the tent flap flips and Coulson is standing there. “You’re going to want to see this.”

His attention diverted, when he spins back around to glimpse the ghost – it is gone. He shrugs off the bag and gets back into the suit. It is his only protection against the elements. Marching across the flat plateau of the iceberg, he follows Coulson to the medical tent where they have been defrosting the Captain’s body.

When he enters he notes the activity around Steve’s body, the ice is partially gone leaving his head and chest free of its encasement. One of the doctors happens to be shredding his uniform, using scissors to cut it off. Tony starts to object but then a nurse leans over the body and attaches leads – leads that look like they might be wired to instruments to measure vitals like heartbeat, a cuff for blood pressure measurements. Someone else tears away at the Captain’s gloves and tapes on a pulse-oxy meter. 

“What the hell?” Tony steps up to the table and looks at the monitor. “What? What’s going on?” Nothing is right and everything is right.

“We have a pulse,” the doctor is saying and Tony’s world funnels into ever contracting moments. He hears the news the plane has gone down, he watches as the ghost follows him about his Malibu home, he feels the hot breath of air on his palm. 

He staggers away from the table, grabbing for something, anything to provide purchase and support.

“Sir, I have you,” JARVIS says and he surrenders to the suit, allows JARVIS to move him and bring him to the corner of the tent as the chaos continues. 

“How is this happening, JARVIS,” Tony asks and shuts the faceplate.

“I am analyzing the data as it is acquired, sir. But it seems Captain Rogers has been in some kind of hibernation or stasis since his plane went down. He has severe injuries to his flank including broken ribs, a lacerated liver, and a crushed pelvis.”

“But he’s alive?”

“So it would seem, sir.”

“How – how bad are the injuries again?” Tony says and tries to swallow down the rapidity of his heart. 

“The broken ribs and injuries to the pelvis seem to be on the mend, sir, as if they have been stitching the bones together for the last seven years. The lacerated liver is in the same process. I would estimate, Captain Rogers will be recovered in a week with the help of the super soldier serum. If he survives the thawing process.”

“If? If?”

“I am not sure that he can, sir. It is just a turn of phrase.”

“Turn of phrase? Are you trying to give me a heart attack? For Christ’s sake, he’s alive.”

“Yes, sir, he certainly is.”

Just as Tony’s about to quiz JARVIS on the status of the thawing procedure and what exactly that must entail, Coulson joins him in the corner of the tent. 

“We’re going to move him to headquarters in New York once he’s completely free of the ice. The doctors suspect injuries-.”

“Broken ribs, lacerated liver, and a crushed pelvis,” Tony lists. “Is that right, JARVIS?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Would you like to accompany on the transport plane?”

Tony considers for a moment and then says, “No, I’ll meet you there. I have to call someone.”

Coulson presses his lips together to form a thin line as if he’s judging Tony. “Understood. You’ll be escorted to the medical bay once you are in New York.”

Tony nods. He glances once more at Steve, lying alive on the dissection table, and then leaves the tent. He launches into the air without another word. 

He heads toward New York and very nearly veers off to pilot toward Malibu. He’s not sure he’s ready to deal with it. It is JARVIS who takes control of the flight as he’s in between thoughts and not navigating properly. He lands softly on the pad in New York, in his newly constructed Stark Tower. The rings dismantle the armor and he walks in a haze to the bar. He doesn’t stop his motion until he has three drinks down and his head against his folded arms. 

He keeps thinking of the ghost.

He recalls the coolness of his hand.

He thinks about how he abandoned Steve to the wastelands of his memory instead of searching for him. He should have looked harder, should have tried longer, should have insisted against all reasonable thought that Steve was still alive.

“You couldn’t have known.”

Tony straightens to see Rhodey standing in the middle of the penthouse.

“I thought it prudent to call Colonel Rhodes since he was in town, sir.”

Tony sighs and looks up, because if he focuses on anything, the tears might escape. “I should have tried harder.”

“Tried what?” Rhodey says and joins him at the bar. “No one thought he was alive.”

Tony slams his fist down and says, “I did. I did. Look at my hand, look at it. There was never any change. It was always there, even better than it had been when we broke it off. It was always there, and you know what? You know what the fucking kicker is?”

Rhodey is quiet but says, “What?”

“My god damned hand has been fucking ice cold for seven years, seven years. Rhodey, he’s been freezing for seven years. How the fuck do I make up for the fact I left him there to freeze, to die, alone. Alone, Rhodey, how do I do that?”

Rhodey shakes his head and places a hand on Tony’s back as he braces against the bar. 

“I screwed the fuck up. I really screwed everything up.”

“Have you talked to Pepper?”

Tony lurches away from Rhodey and covers his face with his hands. “Christ, what the hell am I supposed to do? How am I going to face her, what am I going to say?”

Rhodey, always practical, always steady, says, “What do you want to say?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Why do you want to say that?”

He raises his hand as if vowing on a bible in court. “For this, I should have never started anything with her. I’m bonded.”

“That doesn’t mean you have to be with him in that way, everyone knows not all soul mates are romantically involved.”

He has to get out, get away, and briefly he considers running over to the rings and ordering JARVIS to suit him up. But instead he stands there paralyzed. “It doesn’t work that way.”

“I’m pretty sure it does,” Rhodey says.

“No, not for us,” Tony says and he knows he must look pathetic as he pleads silently for some way out, some escape from the knotted twists of his life. “It doesn’t work like that, because I-.”

“You love him,” Rhodey finishes for him and there’s no judgment in his tone, only sadness. “How do you know you still love him? It’s been seven years, Tony. You’ve changed, for him time has stood still.”

Tony bites back his words because their seven year separation last time didn’t change anything, didn’t transform their need, their want, their love into something platonic. In contrast it heightened everything, every sense, every desire. 

“No, it doesn’t change anything. Time doesn’t mean anything.”

“What about Pepper, you love her?”

“Yes,” Tony says and feels defeated. He presses the heels of his hands against his eyes and tries to push down the storm of emotions. How will he deal with it? How can he break anyone’s heart?

“Just tell her,” Rhodey says and his hand is on Tony’s back again. “Tell her, you might figure it out together.”

Tony nods but cannot voice anything more. He should be at SHIELD, he should be standing guard over his soul mate, but he cannot. He’s been stunned into inaction. Tony Stark, fucking impotent with fear and self-loathing. 

“Come on, I’ll drive you to SHIELD,” Rhodey says.

Over the course of the next ten days, Tony spends time at SHIELD. He frequents the observation room where he often finds Coulson watching Steve sleep. The medical staff assures Tony that Steve is not in a coma but sleeping; they figure his body is in overdrive healing his injuries and slowly recovering from the stasis situation. They subject Steve to numerous tests, imaging, blood draws, and studies to examine his status. 

The day finally arrives when Tony has to confront his fears, his situation. As he hunches forward in the chair placed outside of the observation area of Steve’s room in the corridor, he recognizes the distinctive click of heels on the tiled floor. He peers up to see Pepper approaching him. She’s impeccable and beautiful and everything he should want and have. 

She meets his gaze with a silent realization written in her features. When he watches her, when he stands to greet her, he knows he’s saying goodbye. 

He tries to broach the subject but she raises her hand and places two fingers on his lips to silence him. “Don’t Tony; we’re not going there, not after everything we’ve been through.”

“You’ve always been my better half,” he says it half-jokingly but it falls flat because they both know his other half is in the next room.

She peers at the door and then back to Tony. “Can I see him?”

It is like she is asking for one last request, seeing the man who is taking him away. Tony nods. “This way.” He opens the door and they walk in together. There is a nurse at the station in the observation room. She only smiles and continues working as she taps on the keyboard in her console. 

Steve asleep draws Pepper to the window like the moth seeking the flame. She stands there, her wings being burnt but she imbibes all she can, observing the source of Tony’s soul as if it is the center of the solar system. 

“Would it make it better if I apologized?” Tony asks and has his hands shoved in his jeans pockets. He feels powerless and small in her presence, because she has been so much more than just his CEO, just his friend, just his lover. She has been his better half, what has made him into a living person over the course of these seven years instead of a walking corpse.

“No,” she says. She faces him and she offers him a sad smile. “But it means something that you want to apologize.” Her voice goes wistful. “Look at you, you’ve learned regret. Tony Stark is all grown up.”

It isn’t mocking, but melancholy and soft. 

“Only because of you,” Tony says and can no longer look at her, focus on her, because it feels like someone takes an ax to his chest. Instead, he concentrates on the figure in the bed.

“Will he wake up?”

“They think so.”

“He looks young.”

“They don’t think he aged,” Tony says. 

“So he’s still what-?” she asks.

“Twenty-three?” Tony answers. “He’s a baby.”

She giggles a little. “Tony, you’re only thirty-one.”

“Thirty-two soon enough,” Tony says. “Maybe he doesn’t age anymore?”

They are dancing around the final act and they both know it. He feels it in the air hanging about them like a thick humidity of regret. They drop into silence until Tony says, “I do love you, you know.”

She shares a look with him and cups her hand against his face. Her thumb brushes his scruffed beard. “I know.”

“It’s not okay, is it?” he says and he remembers dropping from a building ages ago, laughing and saying how she completed him- because in so many ways she does. But he has to admit there is an entire side of him that has lain fallow and empty all these years without Steve. To this day, he’s waited for it to live again, flourish again. He knows if he just touches Steve it will burst into life again. 

But he’s frightened. If he chances it, if he reaches out and touches Steve his life will change. It has been level and balanced for so many years with Pepper. He could walk away with her and be happy forever, but he would always question what it would be like with Steve.

As if she knows what passes through his brain, she presses her lips in a tight line and then says, “It will be okay, Tony, but not with us together. It isn’t meant to be.”

“This isn’t destiny, there’s no such thing.”

“Isn’t there?” And her words are stilted with the pain she’s feeling. She leans in and touches her lips to his but he doesn’t return her kiss because if he does, he’s lying to her, he’s betraying her to lead her on. When he doesn’t move to kiss back, she parts from him and touches her forehead to his. “I love you.”

“I love you.”

“Take good care of him,” Pepper says. Without another word, she steps away, smiles, and exits.

He doesn’t stop her but, for all the world, he feels like his heart stutters and stops in his chest. The nurse in the room has respectfully kept her head down and eyes averted. He stands still, staring at his feet and then he looks up and sees the unmoving figure in the bed. He walks out, and doesn’t look back.

Three days later he wakes up from his drunken stupor because JARVIS keeps bothering him about a telephone call from the one eyed wonder, Fury. He rubs a hand over his face and everything feels sticky and gummy. He wonders what the fuck he’s been up to for the last seventy two hours. He’ll need to have JARVIS replay it all.

“Sir, shall I connect the call?”

“Sure, fuck, why not?”

“As you say, sir.”

A screen appears above his bed and for once Tony’s glad he went to bed with his clothes on. Fury scowls at him with obvious disapproval.

“Stark.”

“What?” Crap, his brain feels like it might burst out of his skull.

“We need you to come back in,” Fury says.

He sniffs and thinks he might smell –badly. “Why?”

“Captain Rogers woke up two days ago and went running through the streets of New York looking for you.”

“Lookin-.” Of course, he would look for Tony. He would be disoriented, maybe even a little terrified. Though it had only been seven years that is enough to twist someone’s world around a little. 

“Can we expect an appearance by your selfish arrogant ass at some point?”

“My selfish arrogant ass hasn’t decided where it is going today.” The shit, why the fuck does he even put up with this shit from SHIELD.

Fury rolls that one eye and, for some reason, it packs a punch right to Tony’s gut. “You do what you need to do, meanwhile your _soul mate’s_ heart is breaking. Though why, I can’t tell considering his stupid ass bonded doesn’t give a fuck.”

Tony can’t bring himself to look at the screen, instead he just mumbles, “I’ll be there when I’m there.”

He cuts the feed with a slashing motion to which JARVIS picks up and responds. Standing, he trudges to the bathroom where – once again – JARVIS anticipates his needs and the water in the shower is already steaming up the bathroom. He strips and enters the flow only to stand there for a good ten minutes without moving. He lets the spray hit him in the face and he closes his eyes.

“Steve,” he whispers.

“I’m waiting.”

The voice is clear but he knows not in the room. He knows he’s thinking through the link and that Steve reaches out to him, has been searching for him while he’s been in an alcohol induced fog. He doesn’t turn around, because he knows Steve isn’t there, not physically.

“Come to me, Tony.”

He covers his face with his hands and wants to surrender, wants to give in to the sorrow. “I’m sorry. I don-.”

“Come to me, Tony.”

The sound, the perfection of the words echoes in his brain until he has to answer, until he finishes up his shower, dries off, and dresses without thinking. He’s halfway to his car when he realizes how the bond has lured him, drawing him in like he’s an automaton. He wants to question it, he should rebel against it, but something stops him. Somehow he knows this is always how it is supposed to be.

It isn’t about destiny or fate or a damned soul bond. It is about Steve and Tony and how they are diametrically opposed but fit together like hand and glove. They are always challenging each other, butting heads and then coming around to support one another. It has never been easy, even in the earliest days. 

It has always been about fighting the urge to take the easiest path. What is the easiest path now, he wonders. Is there any easy path? He’s turning into SHIELD HQ before he knows it, scrambling out of the car, racing into the lobby, and ignoring the shouting security as he rushes into a waiting elevator.

As the car’s doors close, he waves to the guard and waits patiently as the elevator ascends. He stares at his reflection in the mirrored walls. He looks all of Tony Stark, billionaire, playboy, and all that jazz. What he feels like is a school boy waiting to meet the school bully on the playground. It is irrational and silly. Steve is about as far away from a bully as anyone Tony has ever known. 

He never needs to ask where Steve is, not when the bond is practically visible to the naked eye, not when the pulsations from it beat with a rapidity in his blood that makes him feel lightheaded and dizzy with urgency. Before he realizes it, he strides through the residential floors of the building, headed toward what he knows must be Steve’s quarters. He raises his hand to knock but before he does, it swings open.

Steve – awake and glorious – stands there. He’s younger than Tony – much younger now. It is clearly evident in his face and eyes. The moment is unspeakable, the silence unbreakable. He wonders if Steve knows the intervening years have been a mixture of heaven and hell for him. He wonders if Steve felt the intervening years.

“Come in,” Steve says and steps aside. He casts his eyes away from Tony as if he doesn’t want to puzzle out the truth in them. Even Tony knows the signals he must be giving off are a confused mixture of need and want and shame and guilt. 

He accepts the invitation, but feels like a vampire for it. The quarters are Spartan – obviously not a place anyone has lived. It looks more like a hotel suite. There’s a small galley kitchen, a two seater couch with a flat screen television placed on an entertainment center that cuts the room in half. Tony spies the bed around the bulk of the entertainment center’s dark woods. 

“Thank you,” Steve says and walks a distance away. “Thank you for coming, I appreciate it.”

His words are so distant that they actually grab Tony’s attention more than anything else. “What?”

Steve folds his arms and leans against the desk near the bland colored couch. “I just wanted to thank you for coming, Tony. I know that this has to be hard for you.”

The tone throws Tony – Steve’s nearly professional and cold in his mannerisms. “Steve?”

“I remember some things.”

“You don’t remember?” Tony focuses on Steve, blinks his eyes and tries to figure out what the hell is going on.

Steve presses his thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose and then drops his hand and looks at Tony. “No, I mean, yes, of course I remember. I just – I remember some of the time reaching out to you.”

“It was you?” Tony says and the shock sizzles through his nerves like a bolt of lightning. “You came to me through the link? I thought you were in status, they said you were asleep.”

“I was, I was,” Steve says and glances all around the room. Tony can see he’s trying to avoid looking directly at him. “I was asleep or something, I don’t know. What I do know is that I recall reaching out to you.”

“Yes,” Tony says. He doesn’t know how to handle this – they’d only just bonded before Steve went down. They hadn’t been able to explore the bond, its strength, its abilities. Every soul bond is different. No one can predict the characteristics of any bond – they are as different as fingerprints. 

“You were, you are happy, now. I’m glad.”

“Happy?”

“With – you found a girl. Pepper, right?” 

Studying Steve, Tony sees his emotion bleached out of his face as if he’s practiced and washed away all residual feelings from marring his appearance. 

“I just wanted you to come to me, so that I could offer you,” Steve says and now he allows a little glimpse of the pain to show. “I- Director Fury told me they have new ways to sever the bond. They work –I-.”

“What? What the fuck are you saying?” Nothing is right, everything tilts and falls and crumbles around him.

“I know you’re in love with Pepper, Tony, I can feel it through the bond. I want to step aside. I know we could still remain bonded, but I’d rather not-.”

“The fuck, you’re cutting our bond? You-.” He cannot even express any of what flies through his head because it tornadoes through his brain, crashing and breaking everything in its path. “You are a stupid god damned – what the hell is wrong with you?”

“I’m trying to be a gentleman about it, Tony. I would think-.”

“Think again, you god damned ass. What the hell kind of gentleman downs his fucking plane, leaves his soul mate to mourn his god damned _death_ for seven years only to stand here and tell me you want to break up with me? You are a piece of work, you know that?” Tony cannot breathe, he can’t think, he just wants to rattle the man standing with slumped shoulders before him.

Steve nods repeatedly, and then lowers his head. “You’re right. You’re right.” He glances up at Tony. “I’m sorry. I know it must have been hard on you, to deal- to suffer through all that. I want to make it right for you; you have to know I want to make it right for you. I know you love Pepper, we could go through the procedure-.”

“It’s experimental,” Tony says.

“I know, Director Fury told me,” Steve says. “But the success rate is pretty good. I want to make this right for you, let me do that, Tony.”

“What about you?” Tony says. He needs to hear Steve say it before he agrees to anything this radical.

Steve turns away to stare out the window. “World’s changed. Been only seven years but seems like ten times that – I think we’ve all moved on.”

Tony waits, waits for Steve to look at him. When he fails to, Tony sighs and says, “I’ll talk to Fury, have him set things up.”

“Thanks, Tony,” Steve says, finally facing him again. There’s a minimalism about him, as if he’s only half there now. 

Tony doesn’t respond he just walks to the door and leaves. He must wander around the streets of New York but eventually he has to go back to SHIELD and retrieve his car. He drives to his newly built Tower and holds up in the lab. He’s not sure what he’s supposed to do, or why. He just functions – at some point he calls Fury and sets up an appointment with the medical team to sever the bond.

Fury looks pissed, but he only agrees without much protest. 

“What can I say; I don’t play well with others.”

“Breaking a soul bond isn’t a walk in the park, Stark.”

“I’m well aware of that, send the data the medical and research team has. I can take a look at it and see if any tweaks are needed.”

Fury doesn’t confirm or deny him access. In the end the data comes to his email and Tony spends the next week reviewing the information and communicating with the lead scientist on the project. When he gets lost in the project, Tony ends up asking JARVIS to contact Pepper. 

She answers the call but says, “Tony, I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“It has to be, it’s the only idea I have right now.”

She smiles at him. “What do you need?”

“You?”

“Tony.”

“Steve asked for the bond to be severed.” He didn’t want to blurt it out, but sometimes he has diarrhea of the mouth. Before she can respond, he tries to explain. “He wanted to give us a chance. He knew – knows that we’re or that we were together.”

“I don’t know what you’re saying Tony. That doesn’t make any sense to me.”

“He wants us to give it a go.”

“Give it a go; you make it sound like it’s a camping trip-.”

“Camping trip, you don’t go camping.” She talks over him and says, “I don’t even like camping. What are you – Tony – I don’t understand?”

“Who does understand the great and powerful Capsicle? I don’t even think I understood him before his brain was frozen for seven years.”

“So-.”

“So?”

She lightly breathes out, but it is enough that the receiver picks it up. “I’m not sure why we’re talking about this.”

He hates this, because it is all out of character for him, but Pepper has always influenced him to act out of character, to stretch his boundaries. “Maybe he’s got the right idea.”

She stays silent for a moment and then says, “Tony, why do you think I turned you down when you asked me to marry you.”

He doesn’t answer; they both know why, it has always been hanging over their heads all these years. “Pepper.”

“Don’t let him do this to you, Tony.”

“I-.”

“Don’t.” She has been his strength for so long he cannot imagine her out of his life. “Fight for him, knock him in the stupid stubborn head. You two deserve one another.”

Tony smiles and shakes his head. How does she always know? “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” It doesn’t sound pained but perfect in some subtle tender way. “Always, Tony.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, I’m a big girl, I can handle it.”

“You always could,” he says.

“Plus I control your company, I can always torment you for years to come,” she says.

He chuckles. “You certainly could.”

“Goodbye, Tony.”

“Bye.”

As the call disconnects, Tony says, “JARVIS, get an appointment set up with Captain fucking America. I think it’s about time to give him a piece of my mind.”

“And a distinguished piece it is, sir.”

“Very.”

JARVIS manages to contact Steve and announces that Steve has agreed to meet with him the next day in the main café of SHIELD HQ before they are to go to the medical staff for their consult on the bond severing operation.

He can’t place his feelings of loss and anticipation as they mixed together in a strange cesspool. He’s lost Pepper but he wonders if he really ever had her in the first place. She never accepted his marriage proposal and specifically brought that to his attention. She held part of herself back in a self-protection mode. He doesn’t blame her for it; he has always been obsessively self-protective to the point of pushing people away who care about him. 

With Pepper he thinks he might be guilty of keeping her at bay, at least a little bit. She always knew he hoped and searched and felt that Steve hadn’t died. That there had been hope. He held onto the hope even though he shouldn’t have. He’d gone out looking once or twice but it had ended badly. You can look for someone when you are fucking drunk all the time. He presses his hands into his eyes. He has to fix this, but he doesn’t know how.

It feels like he’s been diagnosed with a terminal disease, like someone’s told him he has cancer and there’s no way out. He’s locked in a nightmare and there is no waking up, there is no trying for a do over. There are no do overs in life.

He spends the night staring into the darkness of his bedroom, not being able to be swallowed by it because the arc reactor keeps him aware and awake. At least, that’s his excuse. As morning dawns, he drags himself out of bed, showers, and drinks three cups of coffee. He knows this day will make or break him. It surprises him that his life hangs on the desires of someone else so soundly.

Closing his eyes, Tony reaches out to Steve – to find out if he can bridge the gap that grew over a seven year sleep. What he finds is an ache so powerful, a loneliness and sense of loss so profound he flashes his eyes open and sucks in a breath. 

“Stupid god damned son of a bitch.”

“Sir?”

“Nothing, J – my man. Just realizing how incredibly idiotic people can be when they are in love.”

“Yes, sir, and may I say, sir, you don’t know the half of it.”

Tony shakes his head and runs fingers through his still drying hair. “Get the suit ready, JARVIS, I am flying to SHIELD today."

“As you say, sir.”

In seconds he’s by the ring mechanism and the armor encases him; he launches off the pad without a thought. He feels renewed, refreshed, as if he’s regrown a long lost limb. He zeroes in on SHIELD HQ and pilots the suit toward it. He keeps his brain open and busy. He doesn’t want to think about anything, right now. He’s a creature of action, nothing will stop him now.

Landing on the helicopter pad at SHIELD, he ignores the calls of the security guards. Really, when will they learn? He has approximately fifteen minutes before his meeting with Steve and he’s assuming Steve is already waiting for him. In fact, he knows Steve is already waiting for him. 

He heads toward the café. He pushes past gawkers and agents alike and marches to the café without delay. He feels the bond vibrate and hiss like electrical circuits contacting water. When he enters the café, Steve is already standing at the table with an expectant look on his face. Tony eyes the large floor to ceiling windows, knows he’ll have to pay for the damage, but disregards it. 

Without delay or explanation, he crosses the distance between them, grabs Steve by the waist, clamps his arm around him, and blows out the window with his other hand’s repulsor.

Steve only gets out a meager word of protest before they are airborne and flying toward the Tower. It only takes a bare few minutes to cross Manhattan and land on the pad. He tells JARVIS to not remove the suit. The suit represents the only way Tony is on equal physical footing with Steve – and whether or not he has consent he’s going to make a point here.

He knows he’s on questionable moral ground and he doesn’t give a fuck.

As Steve finds his balance, he struggles away from Tony. “What the-? Tony, you should not have done that. I didn’t ask for this. We’re supposed to have a meeting with the doctors in less than an hour.”

Tony retracts the faceplate and glove with gauntlet on his branded hand. “You are an idiot and a jerk. I could stand here and be clever and play footsie with you, but I don’t have the damned time or energy anymore.” He advances on Steve and, for once in his life, Steve actually steps back a few steps as if Tony’s directness frightens him.

Tony grabs for and catches Steve’s hand and clasps their palms together. “For once in your damned life, just listen to me. Stop being the hero, stop tearing us apart, stop not seeing me, stop not _seeing_ us.”

And the bond breaks open in a swirl of colors and emotions that overwhelm his senses. He thinks he might collapses at the pure force, the immediacy of the beauty if JARVIS hadn’t taken over and ensured the suit won’t fall. On the other hand, Steve doesn’t have the benefit of JARVIS and the brute force of the bond slams into him without mercy and he’s crumpling in Tony’s arms. 

Tony follows him down at the same time ordering JARVIS to retract the armor. He’s not sure if he says it out loud or not, because the bond encompasses them in its arms. It grows around them shielding everything and every other sensation in the outside world. In a matter of minutes, it is only the two of them – their souls naked to one another.

He feels the raw power and need from Steve and he answers it with his own. Steve reaches up with his free hand and cups Tony’s head, gazes into his eyes as if seeking an answer to a long sought after question, and finally pulls Tony close to share a kiss.

It isn’t the explosion or celebration Tony thinks it should be, instead it offers a kind of peace and comfort that Tony had lost these long years. He drinks it in like a man lost on a desert trek. He imbibes it and all of what Steve’s soul has to give. For a moment, a blissful moment, Steve surrenders to Tony and the bond merges in absolute harmony and song. He can hear, experience, _be_ Steve in this flawless moment. It is a moment with no guilt, no faults, everything is as it should be, but then Steve is pulling away, dragging the experience with him.

Tony opens his eyes, his forehead tilted against Steve’s; he’s panting and inching in for another kiss.

Steve places his hand on Tony’s shoulder to stop him and says, “No.”

“Steve, I want this, I want you. I don’t know why you’re saying no. I can see what you want. Christ, I can feel what you want.”

Steve moves away from their embrace and he shudders as the bond snaps but does not break. “This- this- bond.” He gestures between the both of them. “I want you to understand, to get what this means.”

“I get it, I really do get it.”

“No,” Steve says and climbs to his feet. His arms crossed over his chest, he stares down at Tony. “I don’t think you quite understand.”

Tony quirks an eyebrow. If he’s going to be a bastard about this whole reunion thing, when Tony was trying to be the big romantic type, he can do bastard, too. Tony sighs and shakes his head as he stands up. “Sure, why don’t you tell me, big fella?”

“Tony, don’t be that way.”

“What way? Idiotic, a bastard, oh yes, I forgot you have the corner on that market.”

“Tony, please, just-.” Steve’s face reddens but not in embarrassment or shame but in anger. “Just let me talk, okay?”

Tony rolls his eyes but he tilts his head to tell Mister Freezer Pop to take the floor.

“I think, I don’t think that the serum was the only reason I survived the ice.”

“What? You’ll have to explain that to the genius in the room.”

“I latched onto you, Tony. I survived because of you like some kind of leech,” Steve says. He rakes his hands through his hair and messes it even more than the wind on the flight did. “I was trapped and hurt, and the pain, and the cold.”

“Shit, you experienced all of that? Like day to day? For seven fucking years?”

“Watch your mouth,” Steve says. “Not day to day, kind of like when you wake up from an operation, you know. You’re in and out of consciousness. It was like that for me. I remember the feeling of confinement, almost like being paralyzed. It consumed me, I-I didn’t have a choice. You have to believe me.”

“I’m not even sure what you’re talking about,” Tony replies, because now he’s not performing or putting up a strong front. He’s engaged, worried, concerned. What the hell is Steve talking about?

“I lived through you, Tony. When I would wake up, I could reach out through the link and be with you. Early on I tried to communicate with you.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“But then I realized I was interfering with your life and if I was going to be in some purgatory, some kind of frozen Hell, I wasn’t going to ruin your life, too. So I just watched, from a far. But I saw, see how much you love Pepper, know that you changed so much of your life with her. You became a better man. Me, I drag you down.”

“Christ, you do not.”

“Language.”

“Prude.”

“We’re name calling now?” Steve says. He bites at his lip but then shakes his head. “I want this between us, Tony; because it is the only thing I lived with for seven years. It is the only reason I didn’t go nuts, crazy. It is the only reason I’m sane. I thrived on it, and I’m ashamed.”

“Why? What are you ashamed of?”

“I used your life, to live. I latched onto you, and survived because of you. I should have released you when I saw you were happy, when I knew you moved on. But I could-.” Steve breaks and turns away from Tony. “I couldn’t because I loved you too much, love you too much to give it all up.” He’s gazing down at his hand, his soul bond.

Tony crosses the floor, and comes up behind Steve. He slips his hand into Steve’s and buries his face in Steve’s hair. 

“Never let go, Steve, never let go.”

In whisper Steve answers, “I think I should. It’s wrong what I did.”

“No, it isn’t. Our bond has been shredded and torn and frayed. But never broken. We will never be broken apart.” Tony kisses the back of Steve’s neck. “Stay with me, and never let go again.” It isn’t a plea or a command, more of a statement.

Steve sighs, but it is as if he’s releasing all of his doubts and fears. He turns into Tony’s arms and bends down to brush his lips against Tony’s mouth. It is soft and graceful and lovely – it isn’t the mad passionate kiss that Tony hungers for, but that will come in the long hours and days and years to come. It will be desire and passion and laughter and fear and anger and love, but they will be bonded, unbroken.

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's the end....I could continue this story but right now I think I've finished it for me. I see this moving through the movie verse with some changes, of course. There are several loose ends such as Thor and Loki as well as the fact I eluded to Natasha's soul mate. I have explanations and might do a few timestamps if readers demand it.
> 
> The art was done for me by the lovely [kanarek13](http://kanarek13.livejournal.com) who is so talented in doing manips, it is almost unbelievable! This was not originally for this story, but I decided it fit pretty well and wanted to give my readers a special thank you for sticking with this story.
> 
> Thank you all so much for reading this story and the encouragement!


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This epilogue is for krusca who was having a bad day. It is a little late, I hope it works for you!

Sometimes in the dead of night, he wakes up cold. He tells himself it isn’t because he spent seven years under the ice, it isn’t because his soul bond is aching and in need of re-establishment, it isn’t because he’s half to a whole. But he knows in the end, when he shuffles from the bed to the en suite bathroom that, with the last one, he’s fooling himself. 

Being part of Tony has become something that’s addictive and satisfying and frustrating and lovely and exasperating all rolled up into one. He tries not to remember how many times Tony has actually done something that will take away his breath and make Steve practically silly with anger. He never thought it was possible before to actually be silly with anger – he’s been corrected.

Loving Tony is like that.

He leans over the sink and turns on the water – just the hot water faucet and lets it run until steam is washing over his face like clouds in the sky. He inhales to steady himself and to warm his innards. He’s cold, to the bone. He doesn’t like telling Tony about these incidences because, frankly, they are weird. 

The only way he can describe the feeling is achy like he has arthritis in the hollows of his soul. He cups his hands under the water; the heat of it nearly burns. He splashes it on his face and shudders as his face drips upon the counter. It aches and burns and hurts. It brings tears to his eyes. It is a residual echo of his life bound, in stasis, in prison.

He grabs onto the edge of the counter and rides out the pain. It’ll be over soon and he will climb back into bed with Tony and when he wakes in the morning, it will only be a memory, a haunting memory. He grits his teeth as his nerves sing out their pain and he squeezes his eyes closed against it. It feels like he’s bracing against the storm, a storm which batters him with a personal vengeance. 

Sometimes, he wishes Tony was here to help him, to cradle him. But he’s a big boy now, the serum runs through his veins, shores him up, and makes him into a superhero. He needs no one to help him. 

If only that were true. He needs Tony, but he won’t call to him. It’s been a long day and Tony needs his rest, nightmares still plague him. Steve rocks back and forth as he clings to the ledge of the counter, like he’s hanging onto the lip of a building ready to fall stories to his death. 

This is an unusual episode. Once he wakes up the leftovers of the dream usually fade and dissipate in minutes but this one lengthens and he hisses against it. He just wants it to end, he wants to crawl back in bed with Tony and wrap himself around his soul mate. He wants to forget the dreams of ice and snow, and he wants to just be half of a whole.

He hangs his head and waits out the storm.

This is when work roughened hands touch his waist, riding right at his hipbones. It is a minute before Tony says anything, “A bad one?”

“Bad one?”

There is a soft laugh, it is not cruel, but sounds kind and sweetened with love. “What? You think I don’t know about the dreams? These weird little episodes you have?”

Tony presses his hand with his soul mark against Steve’s bare skin near the waist band of his sleeping pants. It is warm and flares hot with a heated desire and love. “I know what’s going on, Steve. Come back to bed.”

“Tony,” Steve says and he murmurs an apology in his head that slips out as if he wants to betray himself.

“Don’t Steve,” Tony says and angles himself around Steve until he has Steve standing and Tony’s curled against his chest. “I know you feel guilty about those seven years, but don’t.”

“I used you like a leech.”

“Don’t you think I used you back?” Tony smiles as he runs hands along the curve and sculpture of Steve’s muscles. “According to my calculations even with SHIELD’s nasty little medicine I should have been dead two weeks before I found the new element for my arc reactor. How do you think I survived?”

“I don’t – sheer will power?”

“What you think I’m like Ben-hur, my hate kept me alive?”

“Well, I think sheer will power would keep you alive Tony, you’re that much-.”

“Of a bastard, I know.” Tony wraps his arms around Steve in a hug and it feels like magic. The warm spreads and it is instantly that he’s warm again.

“I wasn’t going to say that,” Steve says but doesn’t elaborate because, right now, in the circle of Tony’s arms he feels right and good and like the whole future holds promise.

“Come to bed with me,” Tony says.

“Hmm,” Steve says and nuzzles against the crook of Tony’s neck.

“Come to bed and I’ll warm you up properly.” 

“Is that what you do when someone’s suffering from hypothermia?” Steve says in a drowsy voice, because being under Tony’s spell always seems to make him a little drunk in the feel and touch and wonder of it.

“You are not suffering from hypothermia, but are suffering from being a damned fool,” Tony says and tugs on his arm as he leaves Steve’s embrace. “Come.”

Steve allows Tony to drag him out of the bathroom, across the carpeted floor, to their wide bed. They drop down in a heap and Tony immediately draws up the comforter. He begins in slow waves of kisses, touching Steve’s lips, his eyes, his neck. It is gentle and light and the fire begins to burn again.

Tony moves away and braces an arm against the mattress as he stares down at Steve. “Don’t do that again. You promised, we’re in this together, now, remember?”

Steve looks up and smiles. He traces the outline of the arc reactor with his index finger – he is the only one Tony allows anywhere near it. “I’m sorry; I didn’t want to worry you.”

“Sometimes, you are a complete ass.”

“Only sometimes?” Steve smiles and he knows Tony will fall for it, because Tony melts in his hands. 

He does, he always does. 

After as the sweat cools and they mingle in one another’s space, Steve says, “Thanks.”

“Always.”

“For saving me.”

“Anytime.”

“Not in the bathroom,” Steve says. “But before, from the ice.”

Tony leans over and kisses Steve’s arm. “Back at you, kid.”

Steve laughs and Tony smiles with a wink at him. 

Tomorrow he’ll worry about the world; tomorrow he’ll deal with the cold. Tomorrow, they will fight the good fight, battle and win. But today, tonight, he has Tony and that’s all that matters to the bond.

**Author's Note:**

> The ratings for the first part of this will remain T but it will increase later in the story as a warning to you. Also, I will try and tell people where these ratings increase will occur so that if you would like to skip that part, you can. 
> 
> Want updates on my work, follow me on [Tumblr](http://winterstar95.tumblr.com)


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